What Was Actually Behind OLA's Relative Success?

As I've said here several times, while OLA was very successful as an Anglican Use parish -- it outlasted most and outgrew all -- its results haven't been reproducible, despite the specific attempts by Frs Bergman and Bartus to emulate Fr Phillips's methods. The Bing Crosby formula, while we might think well of it, doesn't seem to be quite enough, at least to attract disaffected Anglicans. But if investors can't quite see how Steve Slick makes his millions, there's got to be another explanation for why he has three yachts and seven Maseratis.

Irrespective of allegations about Dcn Orr's conduct with boys, which are plenty troubling, my understanding is that there have been lower-level conflicts with all the Archbishops of San Antonio over the school -- in which Orr was business manager and administrator. I had an e-mail last week from a parent who withdrew a student from Atonement Academy, regretting she hadn't done so earlier:

From the very first day to our last at that school, there was always a very scary/strange “Stepford Wives” sort of vibe. My husband and I and like-minded parents at the school used to joke about “not drinking the Kool-Ade” but it was no joke. Anybody, faculty or family that got sideways with Fr. Phillips or Dn. Orr disappeared in the middle of the night, never to return. The remaining Kool-Ade faculty and parishioners would then begin a systematic campaign to destroy the reputations of the departed persons. It was an alarming and very un-Catholic thing to witness. My husband and I learned very early on it was best to give Fr. Phillips, Dn. Orr and their acolytes a wide berth. In all the years I spent at the school, I only spoke to Fr. Phillips one time in a one-on-one meeting setting. My husband never did. That is why we lasted as long as we did, we avoided Fr. Phillips and Dn. Orr like the plague. As you are aware, about 40% of the students at The Atonement Academy were not parishioners and were treated as persona non grata. Non-parishioner parents were not allowed to be officers of the PTA, nor could they serve on the school board. Fr. Phillips ran the school and the parish with an iron fist and Dn. Orr was his hammer. The staff turnover as a result of Fr. Phillips policies and capriciousness was horrendous.

As an example, from the time my eldest son was in the first grade in 2003 until now, there have been SEVEN Headmasters of the school. (The following people have been Headmaster of the school: Dr. Henry Hollingshead (left in middle of the week in March) , Mr. Richard Arndt who took over as an interim placeholder for about a year and a half, Mr. Ralph Johnson had the position the longest but who passed way unexpectedly in the middle of the year, Mr. Andrew Shivone assumed the job until Mr. Walter Spencer who stepped down in the middle of his second year and was replaced by interim placeholder Catherine Protchko. She has since been replaced by Mr. John Markevitz.)

Everything I've heard -- admittedly from disaffected parishioners and school parents -- has been that there's something of a cult-like atmosphere at OLA, with Dcn Orr, at least up to his retirement, a key fixer and enforcer. (This is certainly at variance with our own parish, whose three deacons have subordinate and circumscribed roles). The school parent continues,

The turnover among the teaching staff was just as egregious, maybe worse. Fr. Phillips liked to hire only people who would follow his word blindly and that had bought into the idea that the rest of the Catholic parishes in the San Antonio Archdiocese were mired in liturgical abuses and were not as Catholic as the people at OLA. Fr. Phillips roundly ignored Archdiocesan guidelines requiring teachers be certified to teach in Texas and if not, be on a three year plan to obtain their certification. I did not know that Archbishop Flores tried to remove Fr. Phillips after the teaching Sisters left the Atonement Academy but I do know there were a series of meetings discussing how the Archdiocese was trying to strong-arm OLA into adopting diocesan accounting standards before the school could be expanded and the end result was the parish paid lip service to the diocese but did what it wanted when the bishop wasn‘t looking. When Archbishop Flores retired and Archbishop Jose Gomez was appointed, he took an interest in the situation and things started getting better at the school. This coincided with Mr. Johnson’s tenure as Headmaster. Mr. Johnson began to try to comply with and join into the diocesan community. Unfortunately, after he passed away, Archbishop Gomez was moved to Los Angeles and the compliance of the school in hiring certified teachers went away. Archbishop Siller-Garcia in the last three years has begun to focus on his Catholic schools and had been putting pressure on the school and parish to comply with the same diocesan procedures and guidelines as the other Catholic parishes. But Fr. Phillips has resisted this, with, in my opinion, a great deal of arrogance.

The impression that Fr Phillips fostered "the idea that the rest of the Catholic parishes in the San Antonio Archdiocese were mired in liturgical abuses and were not as Catholic as the people at OLA" is consistent with other e-mails I've had -- but wait a moment. Fr Phillips is a convert! The liturgy he pushes was only approved when he came into the Church, but at best, it dates from 1905 and has a whiff of syncretism! But the man claims to be more Catholic than any archbishop!

So, based on suggestions from this and other visitors, it seems that the school had issues over accounting and accreditation that seem to have been the cause of low-level conflicts with the archdiocese throughout its history. It's not hard to conclude that the principals and headmasters reported de facto to Dcn Orr, who used the technique of constant churning to keep them from accomplishing too much. I suspect that with the appointment of an archdiocesan investigator in Msgr Kurzaj, more will come to light here.

So I would attribute OLA's relative success to two factors:

• Fr Phillips's ability to convince a core that the entire archdiocese was out of step but OLA. Inevitably, he had to play a cult-like role in doing this, with greater-than-usual "thought control" of parishioners. The school became a draw, with few other options for Catholic parents in the area, as well as an enforcement tool.
• Dcn Orr apparently proved of great use to Fr Phillips as an enforcer in both the parish and the school. In return, he appears to have allowed Dcn Orr to operate without effective supervision, although I assume he knew what was going on.

By this interpretation, Fr Phillips, by strongarming the parish and adamant denial of any problems, kept the thing going for 35 years, probably by keeping just enough of a lid on it that no bishop -- or indeed, prospective ordinary -- saw sufficient cause to push just a little harder. The prospect of an imminent lawsuit in January-February of this year changed circumstances radically, though one suspects that if Abps Flores, Gomez, or Garcia-Siller had had just a slightly different matter brought to their attention at any time, this could have happened much earlier.

Whatever forced Dcn Orr's retirement was probably the beginning of the end for Fr Phillips -- although my guess is that both the parish's moves to join the OCSP were jurisdiction-hopping on Fr Phillips's part, in an effort to escape from continuing pressure in the archdiocese. It would not surprise me, though, if both Msgr Steenson and Bp Lopes applied conditions to their acceptance of OLA that also would have been unacceptable to Fr Phillips, and Dcn Orr's retirement might have been a desperate last measure on Fr Phillips's part.

I don't think the situation that led to Fr Phillips's suspension was new or arbitrary.