I'm not persuaded that the document to which you linked in today's post [here] reflects any sort of major change in the policy of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. A couple years ago, the pastor of St. Thomas More in Toronto remarked on his personal blog ("Peregrinations") that the ordinariate had established definitive criteria for ordinariate communities to attain the status of "mission" and then of "parish." Nevertheless, the publication of this information in an official document is clearly a major change in practice and a step in the right direction.But unless definitive criteria, or definitive policies, for any area are written and published, they aren't very useful. Let's take one "policy" I've heard expressed several times over the past four years: a parish or group or whatever can't be involved in civil litigation, which is typically invoked to explain Houston's lack of initiative on the St Mary of the Angels case.
But in the policy as published, item (6) Stability: Civil Litigation, a "community in formation" is not excluded from civil litigation, although I assume this anticipates that any such litigation would be resolved in the process of admission.
But As of January 2012, St Mary's had not been involved in litigation, which was brought only in May 2012 by the ACA, and this was at least in part a result of miscalculation in Houston. As of 2016, it is anticipated that this litigation will be resolved favorably in a fairly short period -- which would not exclude the parish becoming a "group in formation", which is what it would have to become in any case to begin the process of admission.
On one hand, my experience in the corporate world suggests that if I were to raise this sort of issue over a corporate policy, it would be taken as yet another indication that I am a smartass. On the other, I am not currently in a position to endorse the St Mary's parish taking this step in any case. But it's an indication of why it is desirable for policies to be published, since without publication, people still "assume" what they are, often in error.
My visitor continues with another worthwhile point:
As to the situation at St. Thomas More in Scranton, I doubt that its status will change unless it really comes unglued. The stated criteria are to "become" a mission or a parish -- NOT to "remain" a mission or a parish. The last thing that the hierarchy wants is a "yoyo" community that oscillates between status as one type of community or another as families moving in and out cause its membership to oscillate around some threshold or as economic cycles cause its fluctuations in its economic situation.Clearly, as stated in the policy, a principal goal is stability of communities, and my visitor is correct in saying it would defeat the purpose to have a community yo-yo between states. On the other hand, and the policy might have been better conceived to make this clearer, many of its criteria appear to be aimed specifically at the responsibilities -- i.e., performance criteria -- of priests in parishes.In the same way, a new Benedictine priory must grow to twelve solemnly professed monks to become an abbey -- but it does not cease to be an abbey if it subsequently drops below that number. The Benedictine community with which I habitually worship had several deaths in a short time that caused it to drop to only eight monks two decades ago. It now has nine monks in solemn vows, but it's still an abbey even two decades after its membership dropped to just 2/3 of the threshold to gain that status.
The farther down we read in the policy, the more we see performance criteria that look a lot like those in corporate personnel appraisals -- for instance, (5) STABILITY: SACRAMENTAL DISCIPLINE, (7) VITALITY: RELATIONSHIP WITH LOCAL DIOCESE, and (8) VITALITY: DOCILITY TO ORDINARY & PEACE WITH ONE ANOTHER. One might see categories like these, or variations depending on circumstances, in a corporate annual appraisal form, the only addition being boxes for "Exceeds Expectations", "Meets Expectations", and "Improvement Needed", with space for comments.
Naturally, the appropriate response by the Ordinary if a priest is determined to be deficient in any of these areas would not be to demote the whole parish to mission. But isn't a response called for? The clearest example we see is that of St Thomas More Scranton, where an appraisal might result in "Improvement Needed" for Fr Bergman in several categories. In a corporate environment, we would expect vigorous incentives to be applied that would be aimed at rapidly bringing the individual up to par, probably within a period of months.
Yet Fr Bergman continues on the Ordinariate governing council and is an important member of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, where he is apparently valued as a member of Bp Lopes's inner circle. Not good.
