I've worked for national US corporations whose headquarters are pusillanimous in comparison. But the OCSP's laity numbers only in four figures by any credible estimate. And how many movers and shakers will actually ever sit in that meeting/board room? The only conclusion I can draw is that this was built on speculation, with the representation to the donors that the OCSP would be much larger than it has actually emerged.
I shudder at the air conditioning bill alone in comparison to the OCSP's income. On the other hand, this is clearly the kind of place you want to show visiting TEC bishops, who'll approvingly note that it's almost as good as what TEC has.
This brings me to my regular correspondent's most recent comments:
In answer to your question "where is the OCSP's bishop here?" I would say that the answer is "in an awkward position." It is one thing to allow small and apparently unsustainable communities, almost all inherited from the ACA, to quietly wither away. Where there is robust lay leadership they may survive without much intervention from Houston, but in the case of those entirely dependant on the leadership of their clergyman they will simply disappear when he leaves, as St Gilbert's, Boerne has done, or St Anselm's, Corpus Christi.I would say that a good part of the "continuing" impetus came from murmerers within Anglican Communion denominations. You can't build anything solid from murmerers, who'll simply continue to murmer wherever they are -- this is one key lesson we should take from St Mary of the Angels. The little OCSP groups seem to be attracting diocesan murmerers, who, because existing Catholic schools aren't good enough, will build castles in the air over wonderful home school co-ops that never emerge.But tying the ordination of married candidates to the formation of new communities simply ensures the formation of more small groups with no long-term prospects. A man who has ties to Podunk is told that if he can gather together one or two dozen local worshippers he could be a candidate for ordination. As we have discussed before, the clergyman who can build up this handful of worshippers into a large congregation supporting a building and a school is the rare exception, not the norm on which one can build a business plan.
In any event a sizeable percentage of his congregation, be it large or small, will be people who previously attended another local Catholic church. And if he does show potential to grow the congregation, there is a strong possibility that he will be moved on to a larger group which has become leaderless, as happened to Fr Stainbrook and Fr Lewis. If the group they have left has not achieved sustainability, it will probably fold
The Darwinian struggle is good for the biosphere but it is not a particularly edifying spectacle in the Catholic church. I read the FB pages and similar sources week after week and wonder why these people want, as you say, to forego all semblance of parish life for the opportunity to attend said DW in some cubbyhole. Noted, as a sidebar, that the St Timothy's, Ft Worth website, long-neglected, shows as the Clerk of the Parish Council a woman who died last year and whose funeral was held at a local TEC church.
I think that among other things, Bp Lopes and the OCSP need to develop a contingency plan for how to dispose of that chancery building. But I don't see an up-and-coming insurance agency having much interest.
