My take is that OLA's relative success has much less to do with the Anglican Liturgy drawing former Anglicans in to the parish, but the great success it experienced in drawing Cradle Catholics in. A good deal of that success is likely due to the time and place in which it was established and experienced its growth.The visitor then traces the growth of pro-Traditionalist bookstores and media, especially in the archdiocese, and points out that OLA had been a focus of the movement there.While the parish was established in 1983 under the Pastoral Provision which allowed an Anglican Use of the Mass to be celebrated for groups of Anglicans coming in to the Catholic Church, the following year Pope John Paul II promulgated the indult Quattuor abhinc annos to allow for the celebration of the more traditional form of the Latin Mass for those groups that requested it. Archbishop Flores decided that OLA should be the personal parish for those wanting the Indult Mass, and Father Phillips agreed to do it. When he later decided that many of those coming for the Traditional Mass considered themselves not only unique in the parish but separate from the remainder of the parish. Father changed to the Ordinary Form of the Latin Mass and has continued offering it for several years now.
[In California], Catholic Treasures Traditional Catholic Bookstore [was] spreading news about the heterodox nature of the Catholic "Dissenters" invited to speak at the Religious Ed Conference. When a number of the same speakers would be invited to the San Antonio Catechetical Conferences, it was Defenders of the Magisterium and Christ the King Catholic Bookstore that would spread the news about the heterodoxy in the Archdiocese. The owners of the bookstore had gone to Our Lady of the Atonement for the Indult Mass (but likely moved on to an independent chapel when the Mass was changed to the "Novus Ordo"), while the Board of the Directors of the Defenders looked much like the parish council at Our Lady of the Atonement (pretty much all Cradle Catholics).However, as the OCSP is presently constituted, this would definitely be mission creep, and in particular, Msgr Steenson dissociated the OCSP from Latin masses. As I understand it, this was under pressure from some bishops, and it's likely Bp Lopes would also be pressured to continue this policy.From the Defenders Winter of 1999 newsletter you would read under from the Editor: "Our first newsletter even surprised us! Only one person complained that he felt we lost credibility by not using writers names on articles. His point is well taken and we thank this gentleman for taking the time and write us. We are striving to be more open; however, not all our writers can put their name on their articles for various reasons." It seems quite likely the editors included the clergy at Our Lady of the Atonement. A particularly constant topic was all of the liturgical abuses occurring in the Archdiocese. The Defenders had their own "Liturgical Committee" to police parishes and make unwanted reports to the Archbishop, while the St. Joseph Foundation became the place to report abuses from around the country.
For other Ordinariate Communities to have the success of OLA, they should offer a Latin Mass to establish themselves as a bastion of sound liturgy, spread credible reports of every other Catholic parish in the area being rife with liturgical abuses, and open a Catholic School with choral music as the only elective and Latin the main foreign language. That formula seems very unlikely to repeat itself. For OLA to experience some regression, have them join the Ordinariate with the agreement that they would no longer offer a Latin Mass for the benefit of the greater Archdiocesan Community.
In addition, although Fr Bartus and Fr Bergman in particular have proposed schools along the line of Atonement Academy, this project appears moribund -- the support just isn't there in the OCSP. But beyond that, with the current controversy surrounding Dcn Orr, the question becomes whether even Atonement Academy can continue.
Still more, considering the number of major metropolitan areas that don't have access even to an OCSP mission (New York, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Denver, Raleigh-Durham, Cincinnati, Detroit, Pittsburgh. . .) the OCSP can't serve as any rallying point for traditional Catholics in most parts of the country, Latin mass or school notwithstanding -- but the Anglicans would likely seem too new and overspecialized to draw cradle Catholics no matter what.
