Aren't We Missing An Important Point?

To my visitor's comments in yesterday's post, my regular correspondent replies,

I'm sure Fr Sellers sermon (at the school mass, not that of the OCSP group, I assume, since DW was not used), was excellent. And I am sure he is not responsible for setting up or maintaining the school website, which is also quite professsional-looking. But have you looked at the St Margaret, Katy website (which he did create)?

To call it amateurish is insulting to amateurs. Any 16 year old could produce something more polished. It is also never updated with current announcements, just the odd group picture. Which group seems to be shrinking rather than growing. There used to be a FB page, but Fr Sellers seems to have abandoned FB, both personally and professionally. A choice other educators might agree with, of course. He described himself to David Murphy as a "fifth-generation journalist" as I recall, and no doubt he is a good writer. But he is not technically proficient; the Ordinariate Observer under his editorship was very much "All the news that fits" and he even got the edition number wrong at one point.

The one edition that has appeared since he left was visually in a completely different league, although similarly filled with out of date puff pieces. When he gave interviews about the OCSP he spoke in general superlatives, with little content. I believe that Fr Chalmers was the one who was in charge of getting the web site set up, originally; I saw his endorsement on the website of the provider. Although it is not great---at one point the OCSP website had two different addresses, for example, and the parish map, with its mysterious third parish in Northern California, has always puzzled me---it looks acceptable. But it has never been well-maintained, and there has never been a news-gathering function.

As for Msgr Gipson, as rector of the largest TEC parish in the country am sure he had a significant number of accounting and investment professionals handling all the financial business of the parish. He didn't have to get hands-on any more than he had to know how to fix the air-conditioning. Latterly he was moved to "Advancement" with Msgr Steenson's former PA reporting to him; she is now gone as well.

Granted, there weren't many resources available to these men. Fr Sellers was supply teaching to support himself. Steenson was splitting his time among the Chancery office, travelling, and his seminary teaching, so I imagine that any "management structure" was pretty minimal.

I'm grateful to both visitors for clarifying the TEC backgrounds of both these men, but this raises an important question: both were rectors of major TEC parishes. There were no similar parishes for them to take over in the OCSP -- as of 2012, the only equivalent was Our Lady of Walsingham, still small by TEC standards, on which Fr Hough IV presumably had a lock. So basically, Msgr Steenson had to find make-work jobs for both that were probably not consistent with their actual skills.

Once again -- could this have been foreseen between 2005 and 2009? Even Msgr Steenson's tiptoe-on-eggshells departure from TEC might have given an indication that major TEC parishes of the sort Sellers and Gipson led weren't going to get an easy out, and thus it might be prudent to rethink the opportunities for all clergy that would be available once the OCSP was erected. For that matter, could Sellers and Gipson have foreseen developments themselves? Certainly there have been, and presumably continue to be, TEC rectors who have full pastoral careers in TEC and become Catholic only on retirement. We don't think less of Fr Carroll Barbour of St Thomas the Apostle Hollywood for that, as an example.

Instead, the only indication we have about either Anglican or Catholic thinking on the actual potential of a personal prelature is TEC Bp Pope's 1993 estimate to Cardinal Ratzinger that 250,000 US Episcopalians would come in. If the CDF, Steenson, Sellers, Gipson, and so forth were buying into this, they might have assumed a series of Plumstead Episcopi preferments would simply fall into the laps of the old boys and their favorites. It seems to me that the major task facing the CDF and Bp Lopes is making a realistic assessment of how wildly incorrect this estimate was and developing a realistic course forward.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent adds,

I believe that Msgr Gipson, now 75, had already retired from St Martin's Episcopal in 2008 before becoming a Catholic in 2012. So he did not need a job. Ordaining him seemed a bit of a vanity project on Steenson's part, to me. Headlines like this were typical. Giving him a management post seems superfluous. I will note that he has been assisting at St Gregory, Mobile, since the OCSP priest there, Fr Venuti, had to fully retire at 34 for health reasons.

Fr Sellers, on the other hand, was Dean of the Episcopalian cathedral in Fargo, ND---pretty small potatoes but, as I have remarked before, attractive enough to him at one point to get him to up stakes and move a long way from Texas. Hard to believe he returned there without some expectation of a job. Possibly OLA, as I have suggested before. Director of Communications was a volunteer position for him; initially no one was paid at the Chancery office except Barbara Jonte, Msgr Sttenson's PA. You get what you pay for.

This just raises again the question of what they all had in mind. But whatever it was, what they wound up doing for the OCSP was inconsistent with whatever they may previously have been good at.

Why So Few Changes? -- Another View

Regarding yesterday's post, a visitor comments,

I was a guest at graduation in May at Pope St. John XXIII college prep in Katy. The mass, celebrated according to the Roman Missal Third Edition, was beautiful with many trappings reminiscent of Episcopal church. Fr. Steve Sellers' homily was great, with the theme of the importance of, "having compassion," and he urged the graduates to always do so.

I looked at the school website, and that of his affiliated St. Margaret of Scotland OCSP parish, and they are well-done and informative.

It makes me wonder, given your observation that he was dumped as director of OCSP communications, if maybe his management structure was so difficult that he just couldn't let his talent shine.

I'm also interested in the observation that Msgr. Gipson was unqualified to serve as OCSP CFO. BS. I'm pretty sure that as rector of the giant Episcopal St. Martin's, Houston, the magnificent new church building was financed and constructed. No amateur could have accomplished such a thing.

These men are highly qualified for their previous posts at the OCSP. I wonder if there's a toxic management structure that doesn't allow "Reagan to be Reagan," and shorts to ground initiatives the top "managers" bring to the table.

Why don't you check that out.

This goes to my concern, implied yesterday, that although there's been churning of personnel, the basic problems that had been identified as of mid-2015, poor financial reporting, poor communications, and weak clergy recruitment, not to mention limited growth, haven't been addressed. Given that the ordinary and his vicar general have been replaced since then, it's hard to imagine what else in the organization could be fixed, though. So why has so little changed?

The ParishSOFT implementation, as I believe was acknowledged at Bp Lopes's arrival, had failed by late 2015. To date, there has been no replacement, nor any sort of interim workaround. My understanding, as outlined by yesterday's note from my correspondent, is that even attempts to get communities to update their entries in the OCSP parish finder have been unsuccessful. As far as I'm aware, equivalent efforts to clarify community numbers and finances have also stalled.

A big reason for this, which I believe is understood in Houston, is that only a handful of successful Anglican parishes came into the OCSP as full bodies with most of their membership. This meant that few functioning vestries, with members experienced in skills like law, finance, and management, were bringing laity into the organization who could add their insights and advice. This also left a critical shortage of capable lay volunteers and staff.

Another reason is the thin bench of clergy. This comes in large part from the fact that only about half a dozen communities can pay anything like a full stipend to pastors. Even if Bp Lopes can hold the stick of replacement over an underperforming priest, there's nobody available to replace him. Yeah, Fr Featherstonehaugh hasn't updated his parish info. Yeah, he isn't forwarding his parish census forms. As a practical matter, Bp Lopes's only option is to shut down his Podunk chapel group, which is an acknowledgement at that point of Bp Lopes's own failure. So things limp along.

I think about my own experience in the working world: in the 1980s and 1990s, there was no shortage of underperforming high tech companies -- I worked for my share. At some point, management was forced by its board or its lenders to face reality and either shut the thing down completely or sell its operation, if it was worth anything, to another company that would acquire the assets at a distress price.

My own view is that Anglicanorum coetibus was a bad business model from the start. TEC had a history of scorched-earth legal proceedings against full parishes that attempted to leave -- it learned its lesson from St Mary of the Angels in the late 1970s and revised its canons accordingly. The ACC, by limiting new ordinations to open parish positions, seems to have brought about a similar effect, reducing a pool of underemployed clergy who would be available to start OCSP groups or replace retiring OCSP clergy.

Between Cardinal Ratzinger's election to the pontificate in 2005 and the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009, there was plenty of time to think this through and either decide it wasn't so great an idea in the first place or work on a better plan. One option could well have been to find a way to include people like John Hepworth and David Moyer in the planning.

But at this stage, I don't think this thing can be fixed. I would note, though, that my visitor's remark that a mass had "many trappings reminiscent of Episcopal church", isn't that unusual. The idea that diocesan parishes are all flip-flops and halter-tops is incorrect. With a little effort, it's possible to find very reverent celebrations at diocesan parishes that are in fact very special places. Anglo-Catholics maybe need to do some growing up and acquire a little humility.

Close To Two Years Under Bp Lopes -- What's Changed?

In response to my question in yesterday's post, my regular correspondent comments,

Bp Lopes has been a new broom to some degree. Fr Perkins appears to be a competent VG; Msgr Gipson was replaced as CFO, for which his qualifications were clearly nil; Fr Sellers was removed as Director of Communications (and subsequently as Director of Schools---I note that "Schools" has been excised from the OCSP website drop-down menu despite the fact that they actually have a school now); fundraising seems to be being undertaken in a fairly professional way.

However there are still big gaps. The website is hopeless: here is my favourite link, which comes up when you go to "About" and then drop down to "Cathedral" and click the link in the last sentence. News items are posted in very hit-or-miss fashion. And worst of all, the "Parish Finder" is a goldmine of misinformation. Two weeks ago groups were contacted and asked to forward any corrections to Head Office but I see no fruit of this effort to date. It would take maybe two hours to look at every parish website/FB page, identify mass times, ideally from a bulletin, and correct the info on the website directory. Another hour could tidy up all the other misinformation thereon.

In any event, this seems part of the Director of Communications function which has not improved since Fr Sellers left. The Ordinariate Observer was hopelessly amateurish under his leadership, but at least it occasionally appeared.

My wife and I, who love both cats and dogs, have a cat-people-oriented potholder rack in our kitchen that has pictures of two cats on it. One picture is labeled "good cat". The other picture is labeled "bad cat". The two cats, while cute, are identical.

I fear you could do something like have a picture of a sparsely-attended chapel group in a dismal worship space next to another picture of the same thing, one labeled "OCSP under Msgr Steenson", another labeled "OCSP under Bp Lopes". They would be the identical picture.

"OCSP with Director of Communications" or "OCSP Without Director of Communications". And so on.

More On Mr Hurd And The OCSP

I feel only slightly uncomfortable about singling Mr Hurd out here, because further research has brought out that he continues an extensive on line presence -- Google "Scott Hurd Catholic Charities". Had he shown a clear wish to maintain a low profile, I would be less inclined to discuss his case, but he was not as a priest, and is not as a layman, a private person. I would also say that functioning as a journalist, I have some leeway over the issue of detraction, especially since as Fr Hurd, he had published as an expert on the subject of married Catholic clergy and indeed occupied offices supervising married clergy on the basis of his experience in the area. The issues we're examining, part of the public record, reflect on his actual expertise in his public role.

It seems to me that there are two possible reasons his first marriage ended, since Mr Hurd's children continued to live with him. The first is that his first wife passed away, which would be a very sad thing. The other would be that the marriage was ended with a civil divorce, and custody of the children was awarded to their father by the court. It's worth noting that courts in such cases are inclined to grant custody to the mother, and there would need to be an overriding reason to grant custody to the father.

Beyond the bare bones of what we see in Mr Hurd's own statements, we know nothing of what actually happened. However, if his first wife had passed away, we would expect to have seen this noted in the Anglo-Catholic blogosphere, where expressions of grief and exhortations to prayer would have been, let's face it, over the top. We saw nothing about this at the time if it had been the case. My friend who frequently prompts me to clarify my thinking pointed out,

Although the norms for the ordination of married men to the deaconate (either transitional or permanent) require a vow not to remarry if their wives die, the Vatican has been granting dispensations from this very vow routinely, albeit very discretely, in cases in which the death of a permanent deacon’s wife leaves him with small children. The basic premise, in granting such dispensations, is that young children need a mother to nurture them, and thus that a dispensation is necessary as a matter of justice for the children. There is no further commitment regarding marriage for married former Anglican and former Protestant clergy who receive dispensations from the norm of celibacy for ordination to the order of presbyter, so I see no reason why the Vatican would not grant the same dispensation to permit another marriage. It’s entirely possible that Fr. Hurd is the only such case to date.

The problem with this theory is that Mr Hurd has been, as far as we can tell, laicized (we don't have a public record on this, but since he continues to work for Catholic Charities, we must assume the i's have been dotted and the t's crossed). The case my friend envisions is that then-Fr Hurd would be granted dispensation to remarry while still a priest, but clearly this didn't happen. Mr Hurd is no longer a priest, so I can't see how my friend's theory applies.

This makes me lean toward the view that something happened to cause an irreparable break in the first marriage, with his former wife still living. Sometime between 2015 and 2016, Mr Hurd was quietly laicized, although the events that led to this outcome may well have taken place earlier. By May 2017, he had presumably been granted a declaration of nullity for the first marriage and remarried. I will be most grateful for any corrections here and will publish them immediately if I receive them.

The next question concerns the circumstances of his replacement. My friend comments,

Canonically, a Catholic diocese or other particular church MAY have more than one vicar general if the diocesan bishop or other ordinary so chooses. Both Fr. Hurd and Fr. Charles Hough III were listed as vicars general on the ordinariate’s web site from the appointment of the latter in the summer of 2014 until January of 2015, so it appears that Fr. Hurd continued to hold the title for the rest of his original term.

However, yesterday's post linked to this post at Ordinariate News that quoted the OCSP web site:

Vicar General, Vicar for Clergy: Fr. Charles Hough III

Fr. Hough serves as Vicar General of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, effective in July 2014, and as Vicar for Clergy. In the latter role, Fr. Hough will be responsible for personnel matters and continuing formation for the Ordinariate’s clergy, will serve as the liaison for religious of the Ordinariate or providing ministry for the Ordinariate, and will assist those seeking vocations to the priesthood, permanent diaconate or religious life.

No mention is made of a continuing role for then-Fr Hurd, and indeed, no mention is made of him at all. There is no message, for instance, that "Fr Hough III will be assisting Fr Hurd as he transitions to a more active role when Fr Hurd returns to the Archdiocese of Washington in December", or any words to that effect. We may say that clarity has never been a strong point with the OCSP, but in that case, we're entitled to attribute misunderstandings to an extreme lack of clarity. My own view is that if then-Fr Hurd's name was kept on a roster, it was a face-saving gesture consistent with what I see as a very quiet personnel move.

My regular correspondent reminded me of this post here from a year ago:

Even if Fr Hurd had been doing an outstanding job as Vicar General he would have been required to leave it under Bp Lopes because the VG is an ex-officio member of the Governing Council and only clergy incardinated in the OCSP are eligible to serve on the Governing Council.

My friend above made this point in the same post:

A few years ago, when the executive council of the pilot's union at Delta Air Lines approached the company's new CEO with serious concerns [about several] senior executives who were, ah, let's say, "underperforming," the new CEO's reply was, "Please give me some time to deal with this in the proper way, but I think that you will to like what I am going to do." Within a few months, he had given graceful exits to those who needed to go and replaced them with the right people for the respective positions. In the same vein, let's give Bishop Lopes a year or two before passing judgement.

Well, we're getting toward two years under Bp Lopes. Has anything changed?

So, Whatever Happened To Fr R Scott Hurd?

Fr Hurd was quietly replaced as vicar general off the OCSP on July 31, 2014. (The announcement in the link mentions his replacement, Fr Hough III, but makes no mention of Hurd, his predecessor.) Interestingly, Fr Hurd had originally been appointed for a three-year term:

The Rev. R. Scott Hurd, a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, will assist Steenson for three years with the title of vicar general. Hurd, also a former Episcopal priest, is married with three children.

Married Episcopal and Anglican priests who become Roman Catholic priests may remained married but cannot marry again if their wives die.

For whatever reason, Fr Hurd's term as vicar general was cut short. I really didn't think much about Hurd until I saw the 2012 press release about the Mount Airy group the other day, in which he referred to himself by full name and title within three short paragraphs, indicating he felt he was as important as anyone else in the hierarchy and certainly a bigger deal than the 17 Maryland bumpkins who were received.

That reminded me that Fr Hurd was certainly as big a showboat as Fr Phillips -- but if he was such a grandstander, why have we heard so little from him since his days as vicar general? After some googling, I put this question to my regular correspondent, but I was a bit disconcerted by a photo of him in civilian clothes at his publisher's web site with the note in his thumbnail:

He lives in his hometown of Alexandria, Virginia, with his three children.

This is usually a tell that he is no longer married to the children's mother, and this could potentially have been an issue for the Archdiocese of Washington. After quite a bit of research, my regular correspondent got back to me:

I see a wedding picture (his, to someone named Diane) on his Facebook page from May of this year. His wife was previously identified as someone named Stephanie. Profile pic from 2015 is of him and his three kids. Of course he would not have been able to remarry had he remained an active priest.

I found it interesting that in the 2011-12 timeframe, he was grandstanding extensively on his expertise in the subject of married Catholic priests. By 2016, he appeared only as "Mr. Scott Hurd, Catholic Charities USA" on the very large Planning Committee for "the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering . . . organized by the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development in collaboration with 4 other USCCB departments and 16 national Catholic organizations". 

He was still a priest in June 2015, although his thumbnail as conductor of the Dominican Retreat still listed him as vicar general of the OCSP, when this was by that time a year out of date. My regular correspondent concluded only,

I am surprised that he was able to be laicised. I thought that was close to impossible these days.

I assume he had connections. But at least he's stopped showboating, huh? I betcha Fr Bartus knows a lot more. This actually strikes me as a rather, er, Episcopalian situation.

Fake News At Virtue Online

A visitor pointed me to this weepy piece at VOL by the pseudonymous Mary Ann Mueller ("Beloved pastor-emeritus watches from the sidelines"):

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS -- That day had to come ... eventually. The day that Our Lady of the Atonement, the thriving Anglican Use Catholic parish and a jewel in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter's crown, would officially change leadership. That the keys to the church and the Tabernacle would be turned over to a priest other than Fr. Christopher Phillips, the founding priest of the mother church of the Anglican Use and the Pastoral Provision patrimony in the United States.

That day came last week on the Feast of the Assumption -- August 15.

The visitor, who was there, said:

One thing worth noting is that the Bishop's sermon barely mentioned Fr. Phillips. As the above article reads like a glowing thank you letter to Fr. Phillips and speaks of a bittersweet feeling, there was scarcely anything of the sort in Steven Lopes's sermon. An unforgettable moment was when Bishop Lopes pointed to the parishioners and thanked THEM for their work in building the parish. Another memorable moment was the kind words Bishop Lopes said towards the Archbishop of San Antonio, Garcia-Siller, as also the promise of cooperation with the Archdiocese.

Well, Fr Phillips has been, up to now, a hero of the dilettante Anglo-Catholic blogosphere, which has, however, disappeared almost completely. Despite Ms Mueller's overblown comparison with the Assumption, it's necessary to point out that Fr Phillips's retirement was forced on him prior to the canonical age, a black eye, and this would just as likely have happened under Msgr Steenson or Abp Garcia-Siller, as it in fact did under Bp Lopes.

On one hand, we can say that Our Lady of the Atonement was successful as a medium-size diocesan parish. On the other, it's remarkably puzzling that no other pastor or parish in the Anglican ecumenism program has been able to emulate even this success. We can, however, qualify this success by saying that from what we know, it was accompanied by financial irregularities, shielding apparent income and transactions from the archdiocese in the form of Our Lady's Dowry, as well as refusing to follow diocesan policies in the archbishop's appeal.

And this is only what's publicly known about finances. Beyond that is the strange relationship of Phillips with his deacon and longtime next-door neighbor, James Orr, and the shadow that accusations of Orr's impropriety with young boys casts on Phillips's premature retirement.

It seems to me that two related questions can reasonably be raised here. First, what went wrong at Our Lady of the Atonement? Second, why hasn't anyone in either the Pastoral Provision or the OCSP been able to do even as well as this modest performance, much less do better?

Ms Mueller, David Virtue, and the former dilettante Anglo-Catholic bloggers have done nobody any favors by not covering the serious problems and shortcomings in the Anglican ecumenism project. Effort would be far better spent in evangelizing non-Catholics as well as the fallen away toward diocesan parishes.

What Happened In Mt Airy?

My regular correspondent pointed out an article from October, 2012 at Virtue Online covering the reception of 17 former Anglicans who had been members of the Sacred Heart of Jesus community in Mount Airy, MD.

Sacred Heart drew members from across western Maryland. Since July 2011, it has been renting the historic St. Michael church - a petite, white clapboard building across the road from the main church - for its Sunday liturgies.

This forged a relationship between the two communities, whose members shared social and educational activities, and now can share Mass.

My correspondent was actually trying to trace which community Fr Vidal may have entered the OCSP with -- as best we can determine, the St. Augustine Anglican with which he was associated in yesterday's post doesn't seem to have come into the OCSP. The VOL piece mentions Sacred Heart's former pastor, Dennis Hewitt, who was received as a Catholic layman and was apparently not in line for ordination. My correspondent believes he may have had a problem with delict of schism. According to the release,

Many members of the congregation split from the Episcopal Diocese in Maryland in 1994 due to theological disagreements and joined the recently established Charismatic Episcopal Church, a denomination not affiliated with the Episcopal Church, worshipping with the Life in Jesus community in Libertytown. The congregation left the CEC in 2007 to participate in a new diocese exploring affiliation with the Anglican or Catholic Church. It joined the Anglican Church in America in 2009, taking the name Sacred Heart.

. . . Sacred Heart is a mission parish of Christ the King in Towson, which joined the ordinariate in June.

. . . A retired Department of Defense employee who also served in the U.S. Air Force, Hewitt will not be ordained a Catholic priest, but will continue to serve as Sacred Heart's administrator.

Mt Airy, however, is in the Baltimore-Washington exurbs -- it was the boonies when I was growing up in the area -- 40 miles from Towson. It's hard to imagine how the two parishes could share activities, and as far as I can see, they never did. If someone can clarify this, I will greatly appreciate it.

The absolute star of the press release at VOL, though, was Father R. Scott Hurd, then-vicar general of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, who is mentioned in the first sentence and also just two paragraphs further down as "Father R. Scott Hurd, the ordinariate's vicar general and a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington". Someone involved with this wanted to toot Fr Hurd's horn, clearly.

There's something odd here, though. First, the original intent of Anglicanorum coetibus was to bring groups of Anglicans into the Church as established parishes, with their clergy. The policy was that such parishes would retain their Anglican clergy as lay administrators, with an interim Catholic priest serving as chaplain or mentor for a fairly brief period until the Anglican administrator could be ordained a Catholic priest of the OCSP.

As things have shaken out, this has almost never occurred, and the example of the Mt Airy group shows that within a year of the OCSP's erection, there had been major departures from the original model. As far as I can tell, the Mt Airy group never appeared on any OCSP list of communities, and as far as I can tell, it never received an OCSP priest. If the group survived at all, it must have been as a small fellowship in the St Michael's diocesan parish.

My correspondent comments,

I guess they joined Christ the King [but this is 40 miles away] or were absorbed into the host parish. There were many (6 or 7) former clergy entering the OCSP in the greater Baltimore area but they were in need of stipends and could not stick around to pastor small groups. I am convinced that St Timothy's, Catonsville is still in existence only because of its dedicated Music Director. Sunday mass is celebrated by a number of supply priests.

This leaves open the question of what happened to Fr Vidal's former St. Augustine Anglican parish, of which at this point no trace remains. That Fr Vidal was ordained in June 2012 indicates that he was well-connected, presumably with Fr Hurd, and that the OCSP was already ordaining clergy surplus to parish requirements. Of the three new priests listed in the June 2012 press release, my correspondent points out,

It is interesting that all three clergy left Mt Calvary shortly after their ordination and were replaced by a new parochial administrator, who had previously been curate at Good Shepherd, Rosemont. Fr Catania as we know lingered unassigned for over a year before going to Canada. Fr Reamsnyder has recently been excardinated to the Diocese of Lansing, where he has served since 2012.

What this says to me is that there was never any serious plan for forming the OCSP or growing it, and whatever vague intentions existed were quickly abandoned.

Deacon Orr Back On The Premises

A visitor send me the following:

I am sure you are aware the new pastor was installed at Our Lady of the Atonement last week. I wanted to make you aware of an important fact. I did not attend the Mass but saw photos posted on Facebook. It was very regal, appropriate of a bishop's installation (even though it wasn't) typical Atonement stuff.

Lot's of fanfare, The Knight's of Columbus, lot's of clergy, the Ordinary... Surprisingly, I saw an entourage of members of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher processing into the church. I was not sure what connection that had to the Anglican Patrimony, Ordinariate or anything else until I saw a photo of James Orr (disgraced, former Deacon of the Archdiocese of San Antonio) in the procession. Orr is a member of the Order. The order is primarily for wealthy people (like the humble Mr. Orr) to funnel money to the preservation of religious and historic sights in Jerusalem.

I was surprised that Bishop Lopes, would allow a person, who had been employed by the parish for over 20 years, who has a civil lawsuit pending against him for abuse of a minor, which occurred during his affiliation with the parish, [redacted] to be treated as an honored guest at the "coronation" of the new pastor?

Perhaps Bishop Lopes didn't know.
Perhaps Fr. Phillips is simply wielding his power so his special friend could be there.

Orr is to the right in the photo below:

Orr was accused by a parishioner of kissing the parishioner's pubescent son on the mouth; Fr Phillips told the parishioner to get over it, it was the "kiss of peace". Kissing on the mouth is now a violation of OCSP guidelines; whether it was a violation in the Archdiocese of San Antonio is an open question. At this point, we simply don't know how any proceedings against Orr in civil courts will be resolved, although it does appear that he will have no formal role at OLA. Those of us in the rank and file who have the importance of protecting children inculcated in the Virtus program do see a discrepancy here.

I agree it's a problem that he should be back on the premises, especially with, as reported here, Bp Lopes also on the premises. I'm with Michael Voris on this, it's important for the Church to send a message that it doesn't tacitly protect anything like this. The sooner Bp Lopes can wake up and realize he also needs to send the Calgary best-buds packing, the sooner it will relieve concerns that he's a bit of a wet in this area. Because I'm starting to have these concerns.

A Detour Into Plato And Space Aliens

I was listening to a Peter Kreeft lecture on Plato, and I seized on a remark that if all red things were somehow eliminated, there would still be a thing called "redness". Another way to express this would be to say that whether or not red things existed, there would still be a range in the light spectrum that would be red. This took me to the question of whether, if no people existed, there would still be laws of physics.

This in turn brought me to the question of whether, if there are people, there are also space aliens, and if there are space aliens, whether they must also obey the laws of physics. Well, if they must relate to the laws of physics in such a way as consciously to build a space ship, we would have to speculate that they must obey the laws of physics in a way opposed to animals, which obey the law of physics unconsciously -- they can fly or they can't, for instance, according to their particular properties. They can't decide whether to fly or not, or build themselves wings.

But this brings us to what would have to be an essential property of space aliens, certainly as science fiction writers imagine them, they have intellects. While I would need to interrogate someone like Arthur C Clarke on this, I would then need to determine how a corporeal creature with an intellect differed from a man. The science fiction writer Jonathan Swift certainly postulated that there might be houyhnhnms, but at the same time, he is implying that these are "the thing which is not".

There are certainly people who expect to find space aliens with intellects, as the SETI Project testifies even in its name. The problem is that they somehow expect to find something a great deal like men. The first thing we see when we go to the SETI page is that they are scanning for "laser flashes from an extraterrestrial civilization". A laser is a peculiarly human invention, as is, for that matter, a civilization.

Almost certainly they expect that the flashes will carry some sort of code that, with diligent application, we can translate into grammatical language, a peculiarly human characteristic. We see from the popularizing shows on the Science Channel that astronomers discover puzzling patterns in radio waves from distant stars, but on examination, they turn out to be in effect non-grammatical and thus not indicative of intellect.

The essence of Noam Chomsky's project, in fact, has been to demonstrate that grammar is a result of a neo-Darwinist process of natural selection, and human language "evolved" as a set of computer code-like modules. I had to study this in graduate school, and it always struck me as poppycock, and the professors who made careers on it as charlatans. But this brings me to the puzzle of neo-Darwinist theory and what we're expecting to find on Mars.

The bottom line of the effort to explore Mars, as quite clearly stated in many of the popularizing Science Channel programs on NASA and such, has been to discover life there. This is a puzzle in itself: the purpose of the equivalent European effort to explore the Western Hemisphere from the 1400s onward was profit, pure and simple. The result was in fact so profitable that by that late 1500s Elizabeth, slow to adopt the project, commissioned Drake and others to raid the Spanish treasure fleets on the expectation that only the small percentage of the traffic thus seized would be a windfall to her own treasury.

In contrast, the US space program is a profitless money pit, a boondoggle that has formed, among other things, a huge corporate-style bureaucracy that offers sinecures and pensions to legions of idlers. (I live near JPL, believe me.) Qui bono?

I think the point is that even if one or another Mars rover or manned expedition can unearth the tiniest fossil microbe, it will prove the neo-Darwinist, i.e., secularist and materialist, theory of life's origin. So far, of course, the Mars surface environment has turned out to be a lifeless desert, and as more is learned, it appears to be not just neutral to life but hostile to it. The reaction, again as repeatedly explained on the Science Channel, is that perhaps some cataclysm exterminated life in the environment we see there, but if we dig deeper and deeper, we may still find fossils, or even colonies of microbial survivors.

And if that's unproductive, there are still the moons of Saturn -- after all, what might we find in oceans of liquid ammonia? This is still a long way from space aliens with intellects, of course. But that runs into Fermi's paradox, and it leaves completely aside the question of whether, if there are space aliens in other star systems, how those with intellects, so far an exclusively human property, would differ from humans.

I think we can reasonably conclude that the advocates of neo-Darwinist theory are in fact so insecure about it that they are spending nation-size treasuries in a so far fruitless search for additional proof. Where's President Trump when we need him?

The Marriage Act 1753 And Literature

Regarding yesterday's question, my regular correspondent replies,

Many English novels in the period you refer to involve elopements to Gretna Green, Scotland as a way around restrictive English marriage laws It is a plot element in Sense and Sensibility, for example. The increasing prudishness of 19thC English fiction probably precluded more imaginative fictional treatments. I do recall that there were those who had to go to "the Continent" to marry a deceased wife's sister, in contravention of British law.

This link specifically refers to the Marriage Act 1753 in the context of Jane Austen:

The Marriage Act of 1753 also made it increasingly difficult for men and women to marry outside their rank. In cases such as these a couple could obtain a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury if they were really wealthy, or elope to Gretna Green, which was the first easily reachable Scottish village, where the marriage laws differed from England and Wales.

However, the Marriage Act would have been a minor consideration here -- Wickham supposedly intends to "elope" with Lydia in Pride and Prejudice , but it's plain that he doesn't intend to go ahead with any actual marriage unless he's very well paid to do so.

If a couple did elope, it meant that they were unattended until they were married. Normally when a young couple courted they could not be left unchaperoned. If travelling far to elope, a couple would have to stay overnight somewhere, which suggests to everyone that the couple had a sexual relationship before marriage, which was quite scandalous!

A more recent US equivalent for elopement to Gretna Green was to run to Elkton, Maryland, the closest place to the New York metropolitan area where you could get married without a blood test. As a true crime fan, I can point to the John List murder case, where List's wife-to-be, who was suffering from latent-stage syphilis, encouraged him to elope to Elkton, where her condition could go undetected. One of the pressures that eventually drove List to murder his family was the tertiary syphilis that emerged in his wife.

Elopement is contrary to natural law.

A Brief Historical Detour

I've been reading Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. Stephens, an American, and Catherwood, an Englishman, traveled to Yucatan and Guatemala in the 1830s and 40s to explore and document the rediscovered Mayan ruins there.

In a minor footnote, Catherwood left his wife behind, and in a foreseeable development, his wife had an affair with his cousin, a member of the Caslon printing family. The result was a legal case that began in 1841, Catherwood v Caslon, in which Catherwood sued Caslon for adultery with Catherwood’s wife. Caslon’s attorneys argued, among other things, that Catherwood married his wife in Beirut in a ceremony conducted by an American Baptist missionary, not CofE clegy (Catherwood was a great traveler), and thus the marriage was invalid, although Catherwood’s attorneys argued it was done according to CofE rites.

The trial court awarded Catherwood damages. Caslon appealed, and several years later the judgment was reversed on the basis that a marriage outside the CofE was invalid. This set a legal precedent that apparently lasted some years.

I thought this would seem to go against received opinion that the Reform Act of 1832 awarded civil rights to non-Anglicans and thus led to the Oxford Movement 1833-41. It seems to me that the legal situation here indicates changes were much slower, and even if non-Anglicans could vote, their marriages don’t seem to have been valid before the English courts.

I referred this question to a well-informed visitor, who in turn referred the matter to an English barrister. That gentleman replied that after the Marriage Act 1753, only marriages celebrated before the clergy of the established church were valid (Quakers and Jews were specifically exempted from its provisions); it was not until the Marriage Act 1836‎ that Catholic and Dissenting clergymen were able to act as registrars. The particular circumstances of Catherwood v. Caslon would have been reversed by the Foreign Marriage Act 1892.

Further research by that gentleman brought to light that the Marriage Act 1753 came about because clandestine marriages were seen to be a problem in the mid-18th century, and presumably the requirement that banns be published as part of solemnization via the Church of England would solve it. One thing that puzzles me mildly is that, as a former literary scholar, I'm not aware of any English novels in the major canon that deal with any circumstances that might have arisen from this requirement, although clearly there was a juicy legal case that did arise from it.

Is anyone aware of any novels that cover circumstances arising from a marriage solemnized outside the Church of England between 1753 and 1892 -- coincidentally, the golden age of the English novel?

Interestingly, our diocesan Catholic parish does publish banns. In fact, multiple banns seem to be published weekly. No banns were published in our former diocesan parish, possibly because no marriages took place there, which wouldn't be a surprise. In my 30 years as an Episcopalian, I saw banns published only once, and it was clearly meant as a quaint archaism.

More On The Protestant Job Market

My regular correspondent sent me a link to a piece in the well-respected UK Catholic Herald entitled "Why Anglo-Catholics don’t join the Ordinariate":

[D]espite the best efforts of Pope Benedict, it is an open secret that the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales has never been keen on the Ordinariate. It has become something of a disfavoured ghetto. Even if a priest or parish has a dubious relationship with the CofE hierarchy, crossing the Tiber is unlikely to improve matters.

The author suggests that the Church of England has been somewhat more flexible in allowing variations in practice among high- and low-church parishes as well and notes that Anglo-Papalist parishes use the full OF Roman rite, as my correspondent has frequently pointed out. My correspondent also says,

Of course the majority of those ordained in the OOLW have no connection with an Ordinariate group, so perhaps they escape the stigma while cutting the preparation time.

But regarding the situation in Canada, my correspondent makes some additional observations:

I have seen a few articles posted around the net on [the TEC clergy surplus], and the plight of younger Episcopalian clergy unable to find "a call." In the ACC, ordinations are limited to the number required to fill full-time positions. This may account, at least partly, for the lack of new recruits to the Canadian Deanery. As I have mentioned, there are only two Canadian OCSP priests below secular retirement age, one of whom was never an Anglican clergyman. The "continuing" church has all but disappeared as the generation of opponents of the ordination of women in the 1970s dies off. Apart from the Bros I know of no former Anglican clergy in the pipeline; indeed I cannot determine whether they are both there, or just Br Shane. No word on a replacement for Fr Hodgins, who has not managed in five years to grow St Thomas More, Toronto to parish status in an area with 5 million people that supports 189 ACC parishes.

The situation in the US, as far as I can see, is a variation on the "tragedy of the commons" that's poisoned all graduate programs, including those in the hard sciences. Overproduction of graduate degrees, including MDivs from seminaries, is a byproduct of how full-time university faculties are funded, with low-cost graduate assistants and contingent faculty teaching high-profit mass-enrollment undergraduate courses. The high margins from these courses then fund the full-time faculty, who have every incentive to inflate enrollment in the graduate programs that justify their tenured positions.

If the ACC has been able to limit this, so much the better. TEC doesn't -- the best it can do is for bishops periodically to release seminarians from their vows while in their seminary programs, which still doesn't equalize the market, but the postulants and candidates have already wasted years of their lives training for non-existent jobs.

Even so, it's a mistake for the Catholic Church to assume that anyone in this position, even among the straight males, is automatically a good candidate for the Catholic priesthood. Someone who's spent years in a US academic environment is probably going to be a misfit just about anywhere.

Anglican Ordinariates And Ethnic Parishes

My regular correspondent comments,

The idea that ex-Anglicans need a protected environment has nothing to do with the Church's practice in regard to ethnic parishes. The primary reason for establishing German, Hungarian, Vietnamese etc parishes is/was that the relevant group didn't speak English. Even when the Mass was in Latin pastoral ministry required a German etc speaker, and mass in the vernacular added another motivation for having ethnic parishes. I think this was a matter of necessity, not a mere welcoming gesture.

As successive groups have been assimilated and immigration from various countries declines, their ethnic parishes are closed or repurposed unless the group in question has the numbers and the resources to maintain them. As you point out, once everyone can communicate there is a lot of benefit to having a congregation made up of people from many backgrounds.

The lack of consensus as to what the Anglican Patrimony consists of adds a further difference. Contrast the guitar and electric keyboatd music at St Timothy's, Catonsville, versus populum celebration and modern Gothic chasuble, with the lace, fiddleback, ad orientem, and Renaissance musical repertory of BJHN. I could multiply examples.

I think a conclusion we might draw from the question my correspondent raises is that, if "Anglican patrimony" is hard to illustrate consistently from what we see in the OCSP, we have to look elsewhere for the problem we're trying to solve. I keep coming back to the employment problem I've seen from the start: TEC parishes, a shrinking job market overall, have still fewer opportunities for straight males. "Continuing" parishes are disappearing rapidly, probably at a greater rate than TEC.

But the other main line denominations are in the same place -- a Lutheran pastor acquaintance recently gave up his position to become a house-husband so that his wife could replace him as pastor of the parish.

So the Catholic options for married clergy look progressively better. The problem I see is that the best cis male candidates in any Protestant denomination are still finding jobs without going to a Catholic second or third choice. The OCSP is getting a lot of men whose careers as Protestants stalled in middle age, or who couldn't even start a Protestant career after seminary.

I have a hard time getting away from the impression that the OCSP is a full-employment program for Protestant mediocrities. I wonder what would happen if members of the smaller OCSP communities were to try mass at several diocesan parishes in their area and then come back to see the thin gruel that's available back in the OCSP.

More On Yesterday's Questions

Regarding yesterday's post, my regular correspondent commented,

On the other hand, the Australian Ordinariate has a mere eleven congregations, all worshipping in diocesan churches. When the priest in Sydney, Australia's largest city, died in February 2015 it took over two years to replace him. There are currently 14 clergy. The current Ordinary is 77 [years old]. I suppose the moment of decision will come when he retires, but at the moment the OOLSC is being allowed to limp along. I have of course noticed the gradual withering away of its publications: "Australia Wide," and the Ordinary's "Musings." It will be interesting to see how many turn out for the fifth anniversary celebrations later this month. I cannot imagine that membership is more than a few hundred. The OCSP looks comparatively good.

But my correspondent also reports that Philip Mayer, whose attempt to start up an Ordinariate group in the Tampa Bay area was torpedoed, now describes himself on Facebook as a Pastoral Provision candidate of the Diocese of St Petersburg. This suggests that the previously mooted effort to relocate him and find some way to link him with a new gathered OCSP group would not be productive.

This has prompted me to do more thinking about why Anglicanorum coetibus is not bearing fruit. I have several preliminary points:

• Anglicans are Protestants. Let's keep in mind that I was told in TEC confirmation class, which I'm sure is typical, that Anglicanism was an ideal compromise, a via media, between the extremes of Catholicism and more radical Protestantism. This implies that there's something extreme about Catholicism, e.g., the authority of the Pope, the teachings on marriage and the family, the status of Mary in the Church, celibate clergy, Latin, the requirement for Confession, on and on. A few months of Evangelium aren't gong to change this for laity. A few webinars, or some seminary make-up courses, are certainly not going to change this for clergy.
• The example of parishes for European ethnic groups in the past, Poles, Lithuanians, Italians, Germans, and so forth, aren't apt, because these groups were already Catholic and were preserving Catholic traditions in which they'd been raised. Episcopalians are long-assimilated members of mainstream Protestant culture.
• The idea of a Catholic prelature that caters to Anglicans as a separate group minimizes the advantage to new Catholics of getting to know more fully formed Catholics from other traditions. In our area, there are many Filipino Catholics who have a great deal to say about being Catholic. Polish Catholics, here and in Poland, have been playing a greater role in forming a cultural consensus in opposition to Marxist secular tendencies. I think it's significant that the pro-Phillips faction at OLA was particularly unhappy to have been assigned a Polish administrator. But it's better for new Catholics to go outside a cultural non-Catholic uniformity.

Here's A Set Of Questions

These all center on when and how, should it be necessary, the CDF decides to pull the plug on any of the Anglican ordinariates. I did some preliminary research on the issue of closing and merging Catholic diocesan parishes and came up with some interesting questions:

• The typical numbers given in hypothetical examples of parish mergers and suppression are much bigger than all but the largest OCSP communities. In one example, a parish's Sunday attendance falls from 100 to 35. In another, the parish has $750,000 in debt that it can't pay. Numbers that a bishop would normally think are unsustainably small are more than are typical in the OCSP.
• Discussions distinguish between the process of suppressing or merging a parish and closing church buildings. However, fewer than a dozen OCSP parishes own their buildings, and it seems unlikely that this number will increase. In fact, of the parishes that own buildings, the status seems shaky in several.
• The majority of OCSP communities are in fact chapel groups that have the use of small spaces in diocesan buildings. When does the OCSP decide these groups are unlikely to thrive or continue? Can any such chapel groups point to significant growth, i.e., the potential to acquire property?
• In that connection, why is Houston unable to release reliable statistics on overall membership, participation in the bishop's appeal, or membership numbers for individual groups and parishes?

Natural Law, Social Media, And The OCSP

There's been some controversy lately in the general culture over how social-media giants like Google (which owns YouTube and Blogger), Facebook, and Twitter censor and otherwise manage content. Media of any sort, of course, is media, and it's subject to the preferences and judgment calls of whomever owns it, government, corporation, or whatever. YouTube commentators who are outside the Overton window of acceptable opinion have recently discovered they can be de-monetized or shut down completely, sometimes for innocuous remarks or irony that the censors missed. (An example of the problem is here -- language warning.)

Although I spent most of my career in the IT field, I've always been a slow adopter. I got a Facebook ID several years ago because I had to have one to sign onto something or other, but I never go there. I'm not on Twitter at all. I do this blog because, having observed the medium for nearly 20 years, I think it's an effective way to put out a focused message that's related to a single issue or set of issues. However, I don't put out personal information the way many social media users do.

This relates to natural law and the philosophical virtues. It is simply imprudent do do things like announce vacation plans or destinations, post photos of minor children, especially in stages of undress, or broadcast daily routines when you just don't know who will see this and what use they will make if it. If I were not retired, I would not be blogging at all -- people can get to employers and find ways to get you fired. Indeed, I'm certain that people connected with the St Mary's dissident faction would have done exactly this if they could have. In any case, we have an alarm system and keep our cars in the garage with the door shut.

Rush Limbaugh frequently mentions studies showing that people get depressed when they go on social media like Facebook, because people tend to idealize their lives and put out an image of happiness, popularity, and success, when the people who visit those pages realize their own lives aren't like that and figure they've missed out on something. This is probably related to temperance and avoiding pride. In fact, I would almost think that going on the lookit-me type of social media could be a near occasion of sin, appealing to tendencies like pride and avarice.

YouTube commentators, including Catholics pushing the Overton envelope like Michael Voris, are beginning to realize they're giving hostages to big-time corporate culture, which is proving it can shut them down any time it's convenient to do so. That in turn says to me, while the parallel is inexact, that we may be dealing with something like a ouija board, there may be some fun in using it, but at the wrong time and in the wrong circumstance, it can be very dangerous. I'm very careful about my blogging, I don't get any money for advertising from this blog, and the issues I cover are going to go away fairly soon, so the hostage I surrender isn't too important. But I definitely need to maintain perspective and situational awareness.

So why do so many OCSP priests have Facebook pages? I don't visit them, but from what I'm told, they apparently reflect a very clergy-centered outlook, with the usual OCSP clerical mediocrities assiduously trying to show they're with the program and validating each other. It's hard to avoid thinking this is the lookit-me school of social media, pretty unhealthy in any case, but also just a little redolent of the ouija board. Who's been the biggest star of Anglo-Catholic social media, bar none? Fr Phillips, of course.

Just one more reason I would not go near any of these guys, especially for the sacraments -- valid and licit, sure, but why bother when there are so many better alternatives?

An Old Post Revisited

Yesterday I had an e-mail from Ms Rayn Random, author of Cocktail Party Priest, which I discussed in a few 2013 posts, mainly this one. The book covers her experience with a Monterey, CA TEC priest who spread stories in her home parish alleging that she was a transgendered male with fake breasts who was stalking him.

It reminded me of the parish psychodrama surrounding St Mary of the Angels -- nuttiness that certainly continues. Researching Ms Random's story, I found that a parishioner at her parish was "Bishop" Owen Rhys Williams's mother, so there's something a little closer to home in the story as well. Mrs Williams was a supporter of the crazy priest, apparently because her son's one.

Ms Random said,

As I was searching through Google, I came across your blog on St. Mary's Hollywood (2013) and your comments regarding my book Cocktail Party Priest, and William Martin. It was fascinating reading for me, as you addressed the question of "why," and gave the most likely of all the explanations that other people have put forward.

Parishioners often asked me if Martin was gay. The two gay men to whom I dedicated Cocktail, claimed that he was. I was quite certain that he was either gay or sexually confused I say sexually confused because of a conversation we had in our first meeting when he invited me to dinner. I was surprised at the turn the conversation took and how almost confessional it was. He also told me that he knew several gay priests who were married to unsuspecting straight women. I later met two of them. That brings me to my reason for writing--other than to thank you for your very interesting and plausible answer to "why."

I have a novel, written over the last several years, that is now ready for publication. I've taken Martin's comment about gay, but married to unsuspecting women, priests and extended the possibilities. The protagonist is a gay, recently ordained priest with ambition to become the youngest bishop in the Episcopal Church. Of course, being gay would no longer be a problem, but a very wealthy, very anti-gay Catholic grandmother would be, when he is her principal heir. He marries for career reasons, much to his regret, and the lies. blackmail, and cover-ups to keep his secret eventually lead to a homeless man found dead in the church courtyard, and he is suspected.

At the same time that book is published, I want to re-issue Cocktail Party Priest with an updated Epilogue. With your permission, I would love to include––with full credit––your comments and remarkable answer to the question, "why?" I think you've nailed it!

Naturally I gave my permission and wish her the best.

Maybe I can rent myself out as an expert witness on Anglican craziness, if people like Ms Random find my insights worthwhile!

Pre-Trial Conference August 10

I attended the pre-trial conference for case BC487079 in LA Superior Court Department 32 yesterday morning. This is the damage suit brought by the legal rector, wardens, and vestry of the St Mary of the Angels parish against, Mrs Bush, the ACA, the ACA Diocese of the West, and other individuals connected with the seizure and illegal occupation of the property between 2012 and 2016.

The session was short. The subject was to be new counsel obtained by all the defendants but Mrs Bush -- in granting Mr Lancaster's motion to be relieved as counsel for all but Mrs Bush (non-payment was given as a reason, but Mr Lancaster may have been ethically constrained from specifying the real reason), the judge required him to notify the former clients of the August 10 hearing and that either their new counsel or they personally were required to attend.

Nobody showed up, either as counsel or in person, for any of the defendants. Mr Lengyel-Leahu told Judge Murphy that no one had contacted him indicating they were new counsel. Judge Murphy, who has a certain "stuff happens" outlook combined with a slightly morbid sense of humor, simply said, thumbing through the paperwork, "Well, it seems like everyone was properly served." He moved the final status conference for the upcoming late November trial up to October 26 to give any defendants who might eventually show up a little more time.

From Judge Murphy's facial expression, though, it wasn't hard to determine that he thought the proceedings were now going to wind up as a default judgment, with none of the defendants showing up for the trial and the judge then simply awarding the damages claimed by the rector, wardens, and vestry. Stuff happens, and it's kinda funny, at least if you look at it the way you sometimes have to.

I believe Fr Kelley and counsel for the vestry see things pretty much the same way. They believe, as far as I can see, that the Bush group and the ACA still expect to prevail on their appeal of Judge Strobel's 2015 decision, in which case the default judgment would be set aside. My own view, based on how badly things have gone for them for much of the history here, is that the chances of this happening approach zero.

It's hard to avoid thinking that all these defendants, whose interests differ and who should probably never have been represented by a single counsel, are still taking their orders from Mrs Bush, who is not an attorney, and whose counsel, still Mr Lancaster, is representing only Mrs Bush's interests. That none should engage new counsel and none appeared at the conference strongly suggests a coordinated approach. Maybe they think Mrs Bush is saving them money.

If you look at it a certain way, it's kinda funny.

Much, Much More On OLA And The Archbishop's Appeal

I've had a series of remarkably informative e-mails from people familiar with how the Archbishop's Appeal was conducted at the Our Lady of the Atonement parish, as well as the archdiocese's policy in the appeal. The importance of the appeal to the archdiocese is reflected in the Parish Manual from the archdiocese, available online. From this, it's plain that pledges and payments are received and administered by the archdiocesan office, which as we'll see below has staff dedicated to this purpose. Instructions to parish pastors on how to represent the appeal on specified Sundays are outlined in detail.

From this, it's clear that deviation from the detailed policies and instructions from the archdiocese would normally be harmful to a pastor's career, and it's increasingly plain that Fr Phillips in fact deviated. Indeed, it's hard not to imagine that he was protected for much of his time at OLA from consequences that would have been grave for just about anyone else. Several visitors pointed out that what was printed in the parish bulletin wasn't necessarily what Fr Phillips actually said in announcements at mass, and the mild suggestion in the 2015 bulletin announcement, published here the other day, that parishioners make appeal checks payable to the parish, would probably have been represented more strongly by Fr Phillips in person.

A visitor said,

To your request for info, we were regularly instructed in the bulletin to write the check for the Archbishop's appeal directly to the parish, and they would send one check.

Another said,

I read with interest your posts of the last few days regarding OLA and money, since my husband and I always thought it odd that we would have to write the check to the parish and then they would send amount to whichever group, be it the archdiocese, lenten charities, etc. We did start giving directly to the SA archdiocese years back, which we mailed in a card with "OLA parish' directly marked on it. I did just make my first donation to the ordinariate, which was duly mailed directly to Houston.

A second collection as recently as July 16, after Fr Phillips's retirement but before Fr Lewis's arrival, was conducted as follows:

This Sunday there is an Ordinariate-wide Second Collection for the Church’s Missionary and Charitable Activities.

There is a bowl near the entrance where you may place your gifts. Make your checks payable to Our Lady of the Atonement Church, and mark it “Second Collection” or you may mail your check to the parish office this week. We will then send one check to the Ordinariate Chancery Office.

How this relates to OCSP policy is unknown, but if Fr Perkins is unaware of what's going on here, perhaps he should pay closer attention. UPDATE: I'm told that in this case, sending a single check is consistent with OCSP policy. However, I still question whether this misses a chance for Houston to identify potential donors -- it sounds to me as though the Archdiocese of San Antonio would be on the case more closely, as outlined in the e-mail below.

Another visitor sent a long and detailed e-mail that's worth publishing in it's entirety, but redacting any identifying incidentals. As far as I can see, the individual is very knowledgeable about the Archdiocese of San Antonio but has never been registered at the OLA parish and does not seem to be part of any pro- or anti-Phillips OLA faction:

I can’t speak for OLA but I will tell you that is an irregular practice in the Archdiocese of San Antonio. In all my experience with Archbishop’s Appeals in SA, my home parish has always instructed the faithful to MAKE the check out to the Archbishop’s Appeal (along with the accompanying paperwork/envelope) and put it in the collection plate to be forwarded to the Archdiocese by the parish staff or to mail/sign up for auto debits from accounts/credit cards or otherwise remit funds DIRECTLY to the Archdiocese.

Just to see what would happen with my money if I put it in the collection plate payable to my home parish with a note on the memo line, I called our parish bookkeeper and asked. She told me it would be put into the general parish account and would not be credited to the appeal. She very politely explained that the checks should be made payable to the Archbishop’s Appeal so that they could be forwarded on by the parish. I inquired as to who keeps track of what is given and she patiently explained that the Archdiocese tracks all that, the parish doesn’t. Got it, thanks! Next, I called the Office of the Archbishop of San Antonio and was transferred to someone who answered the phone “Archbishop’s Appeal” so I asked her the same questions. Of course, this lady was a little more interested in whether or not I had filled out a pledge card and what my name and address was so she could get my account number and see what my pledge balance was. After assuring her that I had already met my pledge amount for the year, she was more amenable to answering my questions. This lady, too, was adamant about making the checks payable to the Archbishop’s Appeal directly. I asked her who reports funds to the IRS for tax purposes and she said the Archdiocese does. ( I know this is true because each year I receive a separate “this is tax deductible” statement from my home parish for regular and special collections and the Archdiocese for the amount of our Appeal gift.) I pressed the kind lady a little further, asking about people who make their checks payable to their home parish. The lady explained that happens on occasion and that it is a little distressing because the parishioner DOES NOT get Appeal credit for the contribution. She told me that she has had people call her and ask if the Archdiocese received their funds, when the reply was negative this was determined to be the culprit, so again, she emphasized how important it was to send the money DIRECTLY to the Archbishop’s Appeal (and fill out a pledge card). I thanked her for her help and before I hung up, I gave her my address (because the kind lady was required to keep a record of the calls she received about the Appeal); I’m sure she immediately looked up my contribution history to see what kind of nincompoop was asking such silly questions…

As I was typing about this call to you, I was chuckling to myself about the nice lady’s obsession with a pledge card. Yes, yes, the pledge card was used by the Archdiocese to keep tabs on who was giving money and to which parish they belonged. The paperwork also serves as a way for the Archdiocese to set up individual accounts for each contributor so the Archdiocese can track who gives what each year, what parishes have contributors and then directly market to individuals in subsequent years, encouraging them to up their contribution ever so slightly each year (i.e. “thank you for your contribution last year of $xx, would you prayerfully consider increasing your contribution this year to $xx + $x? —very personal, very specific, very modest increase and a VERY effective marketing strategy). These letters are direct mailed to contributors each year in addition to the materials marketed through the parishes (hence the built-in costs of the Appeal campaign that is enumerated quite clearly in the Archbishop’s Appeal literature that specifies how funds raised are allocated- nice and transparent, see?).

Pledge cards, pledge cards, but then it occurred to me, pledge cards are ALSO used by parishes and the Archdiocese as part of the calculation used to determine if a parish has raised the requisite 50% of funds to begin building on a capital project. Pledges of funds are considered by the Archdiocese to be actual funds so if a parish needs to raise six million dollars to build a high school, the parish needs to show the Archdiocese that they have at least three million dollars in their bank accounts or money in their accounts and PLEDGES from parishioners to make up the difference to get to the 50% threshold for construction to begin. Hmmm.

(As a former banker, I worked for a series of Savings and Loan/Banks that merged and eventually ended up being part of [redacted], I would tell you to follow the money. If power derives from knowledge, imagine what power you as a pastor have if you know exactly WHO gave WHAT (or DIDN’T give for that matter) to the Archbishop’s Appeal ( remember other pastors have no idea who is contributing to the Archbishop’s Appeal until after the campaign is over and the Archdiocese tells them how much over or under the parish is total). If your parish is built on the premise that it is the sole outpost of reverent Catholicism and the Archbishop is verily only steps away from being the Antichrist (okay, maybe a little hyperbole), wouldn’t it be helpful to see who in your parish was being loyal to the pastor and who was loyal to the enemy (insert “Archbishop”).

So why would OLA ask parishioners to make the checks payable to OLA? Aside from the obvious advantage of an essentially interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars for the OLA parish/school’s operating budget for 9 months or so each year, and the ability of a pastor to see who is giving big bucks to the Archdiocese to determine if a well-heeled parishioner is holding out on a pledge card for your parish’s capital campaign projects why else would they do it? I can only imagine…

Again, I've got to think that any ordinary diocesan pastor who violated detailed and important policies so consistently would suffer grave consequences. My guess, which I've made here before, is that Fr Phillips had important protectors, including for at least a number of years Cardinal Law, and it was only as his protectors faded from the picture that Abp Garcia-Siller felt able to move.

Such a move appears to have been fully justified, and I can't attribute delays exclusively to Abp Garcia-Siller, or indeed his predecessors.

Quick OLA Update

I'm on my way out of the house to cover the pretrial conference downtown, but it's worth noting that I've heard from more OLA parishioners who say that, at minimum, they were strongly encouraged to write checks for the archbishop's appeal to the parish, not the archdiocese. I'll provide details later.

Can anyone provide insight into what advantage, if any, would accrue to the parish for doing this? I can imagine that if the parish collected pledge payments during the year and wrote only one check (per accounts) to the archdiocese, presumably at the end of the year, the parish had the use of the money, not the archdiocese, during this time. It would also be possible for Fr Phillips to manipulate the total, as may have been done for 2016.

Any additional insights into this, how normal or unusual it may be, and how it may have benefited Fr Phillips, would be greatly appreciated.

More On OLA And The Archbishop's Appeal

Regarding recent posts on participation by the Our Lady of the Atonement parish in the San Antonio Archbishop's Appeal, a visitor comments,

My recollection is that when the parish announced its "goal" for the appeal, it would indicate how much per family that would average with the encouragement to give more to make up for those that gave less. Checks were suggested to be made out to and turned in to the parish with "Archbishops Appeal" in the memo line, and the parish would make out the check for the appeal (no way to determine the participation rate other than the parish bookkeeper". If the parishioners fell short, the parish would be required to make up the difference. If parishioners gave more, the excess would offset the parish tax.

Can't see how under that system, how parishioners felt about the diocese made much difference. I might be mistaken, but I think the parish goal was set by the Archdiocese at 1/2 of the parish tax so 1/3 of the total owed. One way or the other it was paid by the parish.

Quite likely, The Atonement Academy was more significant than the parish itself. Any big fundraising event was always a school fundraiser and never a parish event. While the parish was one of the smaller parishes, the school likely ranked higher in size among schools, drawing from local parishes without schools.

But these comments raise, perhaps unintentionally, another point. My regular correspondent noted,

I do know that for the OCSP Bishop's Appeal groups are repeatedly reminded that cheques are to be sent directly from donors to Houston; they must NOT go through the parish books. Of course if there is a shortfall the parish must make it up from general revenue, but the participation rate is quite transparent, whereas in the San Antonio Archdiocese not really.

I note that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles works the same way: archbishop's appeal pledge forms are sent directly to the archdiocese, pledging entities indicate their parish on the forms, and payments go to the archdiocese, not the parish. In other LA cases, I've seen parish priests instruct parishioners to made appeal payments that they put in the Sunday collection basket out to the archdiocese, putting the parish code number (e.g., "105") in the memo field. The archdiocese gets the participation rate by dividing the parishioners giving their parish membership on the check or in the pledge forms, by the total parish registration, no problemo.

The idea of having bishop's appeal payments go through the parish books seems highly unusual. I asked my visitor if it might be possible to confirm this with others from OLA who may have experienced it, but so far, there's been no other information. If anyone from OLA can confirm this -- or if visitors from other parishes and dioceses can confirm their experiences one way or another -- I will greatly appreciate it.

However, wouldn't this put a different spin on the remarkable overage from OLA in the 2016 archbishop's appeal? If Fr Phillips could find tens of thousands available in miscellaneous parish accounts and forward it to the archdiocese saying it's for the archbishop's appeal, it puts a feather in his cap -- but the overage is credited back to the parish anyhow. It would be pure gamesmanship and basically have nothing to do with participation or how the parish felt about the archdiocese one way or another.

I get a continuing impression that gamesmanship is paramount in this tiny, penny-ante world. But any other insights or information that can shed light on what's really going on here will be much appreciated, as usual!

UPDATE: The original visitor sent this information Taken from a 3/23/2015 online bulletin:

"STEWARDSHIP: Please make your 2015 Pledge if you have not done so, by using one of the pledge forms found on the table in the Narthex. Persons making pledges will receive offertory envelopes upon request. Blank envelopes are available on the table in the Narthex. Please clearly print your name if you take a box.

The Campaign for the Archbishop’s Appeal began Feb. 22nd. If you receive a letter from the Appeal’s office, and you choose to send a donation directly, please be sure and put the parish name on the envelope so we receive credit as a parish This year, our parish goal is $30,292. We can meet this goal if everyone gives their share of $100 per registered household. Let’s make this year’s campaign a success. If you wish to donate through the parish, please make your check payable to the parish, and put “Archbishop’s Appeal” in the memo line, and we will add this donation to your annual contributions. Thank you!"

The idea of making a donation through the parish, clearly given in the announcement, seems unusual.

Fr Christopher Phillips And The St Mary Of The Angels Parish

I've been reflecting on recent posts here that mentioned Msgr William Stetson and Fr Christopher Phillips. While I've thought all along that back-channel communication had a lot to do with what went wrong for the St Mary's parish in 2012, I'm beginning to realize that that among the back-channel talk must have been some between Fr Phillips, the most prominent Pastoral Provision priest, and Msgr Stetson, for many years the secretary to the Pastoral Provision delegate.

In addition, the other day I called Msgr Stetson's role in mentoring the transition of the St Mary's parish into the OCSP "feckless". Let's look at the timeline once again. In December 2011, Stetson told the parish that it would be received on the first Sunday of 2012, but there was an immediate backtrack, and Houston requested another parish vote on entering the OCSP in late January. With a vote showing an even more favorable majority for the move, Houston proceeded to dither.

By Easter Monday 2012, the Bush group and the ACA made their first attempt to seize the property and by all indications install Andrew Bartus as rector, called by an insurgent Bush "vestry". At that time, when it became plain that Bartus was working closely with Mrs Bush, the real rector dismissed him from the parish. However, although the first takeover attempt should have been a clear warning to Stetson and Houston that the parish's entry to the OCSP could be derailed, no attempt was made to secure the parish legally, or informally, by reminding Anthony Morello and Bps Strawn and Marsh of the OCSP's intent. (Instead, the ACA may have convinced Houston that they could get rid of Fr Kelley without leaving Houston's fingerprints on the deed.)

By May 2012, the ACA made its second attempt to seize the property by obtaining a temporary restraining order, which was almost immediately revoked by the judge. In a parish meeting, Strawn and Morello announced that they were taking over the parish to correct unspecified irregularities and then turn it over to the OCSP. The "irregularities", of course were non-existent. The odd thing was that by this point, Msgr Stetson had withdrawn from active "mentoring" of the parish and was instead busily facilitating Bartus's reception, with some members of his clique, as Catholics via the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. (Shouldn't his clear willingness to undermine authority have been a bigger issue?) But the bottom line is that Stetson and Steenson between them failed to secure a multimillion-dollar property and a five-figure cathedraticum.

This is the overall background from the parish's perspective -- but the more I learn, the more Fr Phillips appears at key points in this story. Both Phillips and Stetson were involved well before 2012 in the original plans to bring St Mary of the Angels into the OCSP-in-formation. I keep coming back to a meeting at the St Mary's parish in December 2010, which was reported extensively by most of the dilettantes in the then Anglo-Catholic blogosphere. Most of these posts have disappeared with the blogs that carried them, but a typical one still exists here. (This report was from Bartus, who at the time had been ordained an ACA deacon for less than six months, but he had already clashed with his then-bishop, who had inhibited him and was refusing to ordain him a priest. This was fine with Houston, though.)

Fr Phillips, a "showboat" in the view of this blog, was clearly publicizing his role in the meeting on many venues. A video of his talk at the parish can be found here, apparently courtesy of him. Bartus clearly had been ingratiating himself with Phillips by this time -- it's not clear how much of the December 2010 meeting, with Phillips in attendance, was at Bartus's instigation. One thing I note about all the blog coverage of the meeting is that, while Fr William Bower of the ACA Lancaster, CA parish is mentioned, there is absolutely no mention of the meeting's host at St Mary of the Angels, Fr Kelley. This is discourteous to say the least, but it also shows Phillips's and Bartus's priorities.

In 2011, Fr Phillips flew out to Hollywood from Texas in the middle of the week to baptize Bartus's first child, another indication of what had apparently become a close mentor-protégé relationship. Bartus had also been feathering his nest in other ways, relying on his schoolmate at both Texas A&M and Nashotah House, Charles Hough IV, to enhance his standing with the Fort Worth clique in Houston. Among those who knew him at the time, he boasted extensively about his influential connections -- he told me at one point that he'd been tasked with writing the new liturgy. It's hard to avoid thinking that his agenda was to become rector of St Mary of the Angels, certainly at the time one of very few prosperous posts among the groups seeking to enter the OCSP, despite his youth, inexperience, and enormous ego.

By May 2012, the ACA was occupying the St Mary's property without legal authority as squatters, and that same month, the Our Lady of the Atonement parish withdrew its request to join the OCSP. It's hard to avoid thinking that Fr Phillips had intended to use the OCSP as a venue for continued showboating, and whatever the specifics of his clash with Msgr Steenson, this wasn't going to happen. By the same token, Bartus, who seems to have had the favor of just about everyone who counted in the runup to the OCSP, was relegated to putting together a gathered group in the 'burbs, with uninspiring results to this day, and teaching school as a day job.

What strikes me here is that the St Mary of the Angels parish, with its loyal friends, parishioners, and vestry under Fr Kelley, is the entity that's survived and seems to be prevailing over just about every disadvantage put in its path over this period. Msgr Steenson and Fr Phillips are emeriti, a face-saving designation for both. Msgr Stetson is, as far as I'm aware, nowhere to be found in connection with the parish or the OCSP, whatever his continued role in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The ACA Diocese of the West is increasingly moribund, and even the survival of the ACA is not assured. My own view is that the OCSP will shrink to a small number of viable parishes, mostly in Texas, and these will eventually be given over to dioceses, where they'll be small potatoes.

"Feckless" is one of my favorite words. I do not use it in connection with Fr Kelley or his vestry.

Another View On OLA Numbers

Another visitor comments on Saturday's post:

I think you're misinterpreting the numbers. OLA's goal fell just short of 1% of the Archdiocese total, but I think a good financial manager would think 1% was too important to lose. And the actual total was almost $86,000, which put OLA at the top of the small-parish "overachievers," and is more like 2% of the total. Who among us would like to lose 2% of our income. [We don't like it, but, er, these days it happens.]

In fact OLA's total as a "small parish" puts them not too far below the no. 10 spot in the "large parish" category, which I think is impressive.

As far as participation goes, I'm shocked that the top large parish had only a 33% participation rate! Stupid me: I always thought you HAD to give to the Bishop's appeal, or risk getting a phone call asking you what your problem was. I always figured that my lack of participation would be a personal embarrassment to my pastor, and gave accordingly. Doesn't seem like this is the prevailing sentiment in San Antonio.

I think there are two important points here. One: perhaps the low participation at OLA reflects general disenchantment with the Archdiocese and an expectation of aligning with the OCSP. Two: the healthy response by those who did participate reflects a desire among a strong minority of parishioners to stay with the status quo. Perhaps the Archbishop felt it was his obligation to continue to shepherd this portion of the flock and not let them go with just a wink and a wave.

I think OLA's almost perfect fulfillment rate demonstrates that there was a very important minority of the congregation who may love the mass there, and might have been perfectly content with Fr. Phillips, but also was content with being part of the Archdiocese and didn't see a need to depart for the uncertainty of the OCSP.

Bottom line: I think reasons of financial support of the Archdiocese could very well be part of the Archbishop's objection to letting them go, and I also believe he felt an obligation to the minority who did not want to go.

I certainly agree that heads would roll in a corporation that lost a customer who accounted for 1% of sales. On the other hand, I don't think we know much about what was going on in 2016 regarding the parish and Fr Phillips, except that it was something, it was going on for much of the year behind closed doors, and nothing was public until the "save Atonement" ruckus started early this year. As best we know, things had been before the CDF for months at that time.

Certainly one explanation for the overage in the 2016 archbishop's appeal donation could have been Fr Phillips approaching certain of his loyalists -- everyone seems to acknowledge that this was a small number -- to send a message to the archdiocese with a substantial contribution. The issues may have been complex, and the effort to go to the OCSP could have been just one wing of a save-Phillips effort. Another wing could have been to try to convince the archbishop that Fr Phillips was too valuable to lose.

My visitor is correct to point out that there are many loose ends here, and no single theory is going to tie them all together. My own view continues to be that it's a good thing Fr Phillips has been sidelined, as I believe he had more influence, via Msgr Stetson and otherwise, on the St Mary of the Angels debacle of 2011-12 than I had previously thought.

Next Question?

My regular correspondent notes regarding yesterday's post,

You made a very cogent point in your comparison of the transparency of the financial statistics of the Archdiocese of San Antonio with the complete blackout which covers most aspects of OCSP activity and governance. The lack of public accountability is even more worrying than the quality of the decision-making. My only quibble with your analysis of the relatively low performance of OLA is that if its financial contribution was not important enough to be an incentive to hold on to the parish, why did Abp G-S bother? All the evidence that it had deep leadership problems simply adds to the conclusion that he had every motive to say "Yes, by all means go, and let someone else try to sort out this snake pit. Nobody here has been up to the job."

The question of the reportedly long-unresolved personnel issues with Fr Phillips was also at the back of my mind as I reflected on those latest e-mails. My current hypothesis involves Msgr William Stetson, who previously figured in this story as the feckless "mentor" who was assigned to oversee the St Mary's parish transition to the OCSP in 2012. Stetson, a Harvard schoolmate of Cardinal Bernard Law, was closely associated with Law throughout his career. (Abp Hepworth, I believe, sees Law as a baleful figure in this and other sagas.)

According to Wikipedia,

Since 1983 Monsignor Stetson has also served as consultant and later secretary to the Ecclesiastical Delegate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the Pastoral Provision for former Episcopal priests [viz, Cardinal Law], by means of which over a hundred men have been ordained for priestly service in the Roman Catholic Church. He maintained the Pastoral Provision Office at Our Lady of Walsingham parish, an Anglican Use congregation in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston from 2007-2010.

Pastoral Provision priests have a direct report to their diocesan bishop, but they also have a dotted line to the Delegate, who was Bernard Law for much of this period. I assume Fr Phillips, by far the most prominent Pastoral Provision priest, was able to call on Msgr Stetson and Cardinal Law for protection whenever necessary for much of his time at Our Lady of the Atonement. Stetson was also a confidant to Abp José Gómez, who was Archbishop of San Antonio from 2004-2011, which meant that Fr Phillips was blessed with additional friends in high places during this period. However, Cardinal Law had retired to Rome in disgrace by this time.

With the erection of the OCSP, though, he lost that protection, or at least, he would have lost it if OLA had gone in as of 2012. I've heard different stories on what happened between Phillips and Msgr Steenson, but all suggest that Steenson was aware of personnel issues relating to Phillips and intended to act on them in some way, most likely by forcing Phillips into retirement, the action that eventually occurred under Bp Lopes and would de facto have taken place if Phillips had stayed in the archdiocese.

When I researched excardination during the OLA controversies earlier this year, I learned that while requests are routinely granted, if in fact there are outstanding personnel issues, the two bishops meet to discuss them. I'm told there is no reason to believe such a meeting did not take place between Bp Lopes and Abp Garcia-Siller, and I suspect that Msgr Steenson had also become aware of such issues. I think it's reasonable to speculate that the personnel issues relating to Fr Phillips were serious and long-standing, but that Phillips had had friends in high places who protected him until they moved on and aged out. Phillips was also able to manipulate dilettante Anglo-Catholic bloggers to maintain a good public reputation until these also lost interest.

So my current theory is that Abp Garcia-Siller, while he no doubt had other priorities, eventually moved forward to resolve long-standing questions relating to Fr Phillips. (Yesterday's e-mails suggest OLA wasn't all that important as a parish.) Certainly these actions had been under way as of mid-2016. The apparent subsequent move by OLA and Fr Phillips to transfer to the OCSP may well have been driven by the personnel actions taking place within the archdiocese, which of course were and always will be confidential. It appears that Abp Garcia-Siller was moving deliberately and responsibly here, though also with what no doubt was a clear understanding of political sensitivities.

But the issue of the post-2012 construction at OLA and its funding by the archdiocese would also have warranted a thorough review and adjudication by the CDF. Again, though, the exact nature of the deliberations was and always will be confidential.

It's always interested me that the practical result for Fr Phillips, retirement before the canonical age with a face-saving gesture or two, would have been the same no matter who was his ordinary.

Different Animals

A visitor who is clearly well-informed about the Archdiocese of San Antonio sent me two e-mails yesterday expressing concern that by trying to draw an equivalence between St Mary of the Angels and Our Lady of the Atonement, I may be misstating the relative size and importance of the OLA parish.

I have been following your blog and it seems to me that you are conflating the financial issues of St. Mary of the Angels and Our Lady of Atonement. To me, the situations are not at all similar. Here’s why:

OLA had already been given permission to join the OCSP before they began construction on the new high school building. In fact, this is part of the reason they delayed the start of construction for several years (they were to have originally to have completed the high school building so that the class of 2015 would graduate in the new building), so that they would not be encumbered or possibly have to pay back debt to the archdiocese or forfeit any of their buildings/property. It was Fr. Phillips who withdrew the OLA petition to the OCSP the first time for whatever his reasons were.

The second time around, when Fr. Phillips decided to pull the trigger, OLA had already begun construction on the high school (as of today, the building is not yet completed but is substantially underway). As you are probably aware, Catholic dioceses are self-insured and self-funded. OLA, as a pastoral provision parish, had to apply for a loan/building plan to be approved by the archdiocese which required at least 50% of the funding for the project before construction can begin. When the high school construction began, OLA did not have 100% of the funds to complete the high school so it had to have received a loan or at least some kind of financing arrangement with the archdiocese. That makes OLA simply walking away from the archdiocese in the middle of a construction project a little trickier than simply forfeiting a continued cathedraticum which seems to be the case with St. Mary of the Angels.

I do not know what kind of financial arrangements were made by OLA nor how they were resolved by the pontifical declaration to dissolve the Pastoral Provision, but I do know that overall, the OLA parish is pretty small potatoes in the archdiocese of San Antonio. As a comparison, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Helotes has over 8,000 families. I would be surprised if OLA has 800 families. Perhaps I’m wrong, but then again…

So, not to be overly picky, but I don’t see the two situations as similar at all.

One detail stood out: OLA "had to apply for a loan/building plan to be approved by the archdiocese which required at least 50% of the funding for the project before construction can begin." Clearly the property improvements in San Antonio were subjected to more detailed and stringent requirements than anything that seems to have been done in Calgary. I'm increasingly concerned that Bp Lopes seems to be encouraging rather small communities to overextend themselves in acquiring property without having the sort of diocesan resources that could effectively fund, control, or supervise this.

The visitor continued in a second e-mail:

I was later considering the financial situation of OLA and I wondered exactly how did OLA stack up against other parishes in the San Antonio archdiocese. So I looked. I have attached a link for you to a web page for statistics of the 2016 Archbishop’s Appeal.

As you look at some of the other parishes’ numbers and Atonement’s numbers, please know that the amount each parish is assigned as a goal is directly related to the cathedraticum each parish pays to the archdiocese annually.

Looking at OLA, you can determine that their original goal was $37,137.00 but that they had a few hefty donors to bump them up to the $85,791.49 that they actually collected. By reviewing the list of parishes that had the highest participation rates, Atonement is not listed so they had to have a participation rate less than 40%.

The goal of the appeal was 4.5 million dollars so Our Lady of Atonement’s expected share = $37,137.00 / $4,500,000 or 0.825% of the total appeal meaning OLA’s expected tithe on an annual basis is less than one percent of cathedraticum income for the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

Is it alarming to lose a guaranteed source of income by losing a parish to the OCSP? Sure, but with numbers less than 1%, I’m pretty sure the Archdiocese can make that up or give that up with very little heartburn. So it seems to me that the pushback from the archdiocese was something more than financial. Just sayin’…

Another detail that stands out here is that the archbishop's appeal statistics for the Archdiocese of San Antonio are public, while as far as I'm aware, those for the OCSP are not. One one hand, this makes it possible to evaluate the financial standing of parishes in the archdiocese, but the same information for the OCSP is secret -- from my point of view, not a good sign.

I would point out once again that Abp Hepworth, Fr Kelley, and the vestry are reaching a point where they will need to determine the best use for some very significant resources. I'm beginning to question whether the OCSP is in a position to make responsible use of them.