There isn't a whole lot new, and that makes me think the CDF got involved and applied some pressure to Bp Barnes to get with the program.
The purpose of our joint letter is to clarify a new example of this diversity of Roman Catholic faith traditions that is now present in the Temecula Valley.You can't get more awkward than this, huh? It rivals TEC at its most mealy-mouthed! It goes on with the expected stuff about spiritual traditions and Anglican patrimony while being fully Catholic, blah blah, although as a layman, I continue to be concerned that OCSP leadership remains silent in the face of semi-official statements from OCSP members that the Anglican patrimony exempts Catholics from the need to avoid near occasions of sin. (For the usual Catholic understanding, check this very recent YouTube.) There's something Bergoglian about this, the sense that statements can be made that different factions will interpret to suit their own agendas.
A full page later, the letter reiterates the criteria in the complementary norms for OCSP membership, although it now adds "a fully initiated Catholic who no longer practices their faith". But "membership" doesn't get you what membership in an Anglican parish gets you (the right to vote at parish meetings), while "canonical membership" doesn't have the same implications that canonical membership in Eastern Rite jurisdictions carries. In effect, it's meaningless.
Again, though, we have prominent cases like Mr Coulombe, a regular poster at the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog, who as a cradle Catholic of French Canadian background, not married to an Anglican and apparently with no other Anglican family connection, becomes not only a de facto OCSP member but a semi-official spokesman for what constitutes Anglican patrimony. If "membership" was presented to Bp Barnes to reassure him, I don't see how it limits much of anything.
Interestingly, the letter approaches its conclusion in asserting "there is no need for division or suspicion of any kind", although this suggests that up to April 5, there had in fact been division and suspicion of some kind, possibly on Bp Barnes's behalf. If that's the case, I don't blame him. The only good part of this is how few people are involved.
This brings me to another part of the letter, the background of the Holy Martyrs group.
Several families from southwest Riverside County who come from this tradition were traveling to Irvine each week to attend Mass at Blessed John Henry Newman. Based on this observed interest, Holy Martyrs of England and Wales was established as a mission of Blessed John Henry Newman in the greater Murrieta area.All I can rely on here is the wording on the page, but from that, I've got to conclude that "several families" means a dozen or two people, and those dozen or two will no longer attend mass at BJHN Irvine. There's no net gain, at least at the start. On the other hand, if there's been money to rent a storefront and install a reredos and communion rail, someone at least is supporting this effort -- although again, this is money that would otherwise potentially go to BJHN, which leads to the question of whether effort is being diluted.
We'll have to see what develops, but as my regular correspondent frequently points out, Fr Bartus has an extensive track record of proposing plans that never reach fruition. The reasaurance I would offer Bp Barnes is that these aren't laity he's going to miss, if they've in fact been poached.
