Vicar General For California Groups? -- II

I first posted on this possibility a month ago, when I seem to have been the first blogger on the Ordinariate beat to catch wind of what might be coming. Via both a post on Expatriate News and the Bl John Henry Newman newsletter, the picture seems to be getting clearer:

St Luke’s Ordinariate Community in Washington, D.C. posted on their facebook page on March 29 that:

During the (Palm Sunday) Mass, Monsignor Steenson announced that our Pastor, Father Mark Lewis, has been appointed by him as Dean (Vicar Forane) of the Eastern Deanery of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.

This is interesting news, which would seem to suggest that the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter no longer has only one Deanery, namely in Canada, but that the territory of the United States has also been divided into Deaneries.

More information on "deaneries" is available here.

A vicar forane, sometimes called a dean, is a priest appointed by the bishop in order to promote a common pastoral activity in a region of the diocese and to provide spiritual and pastoral counsel to the other priests in that region. . . . A vicariate forane is a region of the diocese over which a vicar forane exercises his office. Though these regions are sometimes referred to as “deaneries”, this term never appears in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Rather, these regions are called “vicariates” or even on occasion “districts” (cf. canon 555).

Last month, I speculated that Fr Jack Barker, a former Rector of St Mary of the Angels and currently a Catholic priest in the Diocese of San Bernardino, might be involved in the creation of a deanery involving California. An announcement from the Bishop of San Bernardino at the time indicated that Fr Barker would be leaving his position there. The Bl John Henry Newman newsletter I cited yesterday adds this informstion:

We will, however, be welcoming Fr. Jack Barker, who will be assisting with us starting July 1. He is retiring as pastor from St. Martha’s, Murrieta in June. For those who may not know, Fr. Barker was one of the very first former-Anglican priests to be ordained a Catholic priest when the Anglican Use first began. He will be offering the daily masses at 11:50 at our chapel, as well as assisting on Sundays. (Starting in July, the Wednesday mass will be an Anglican Use Low Mass!)

My understanding of the tip I received last month gave me the impression that Fr Barker could possibly become a "vicar general for California", which could well translate to Dean of a California or Western US Deanery. In that case, referring to Fr Barker as "assisting" at Bl John's could be misleading, although as I pointed out yesterday, that would not be the only misleading statement in that newsletter.

Stay tuned!