California Realignment?

My regular correspondent, an avid reader of OCSP Facebook tea leaves, reports on apparently related developments at the Blessed John Henry Newman group in Irvine and the new Holy Martyrs storefront in Murrieta -- again, these are more than an hour apart even in Sunday morning traffic. The report:

The BJHN, Irvine FB page has announced that Fr Hugh Barbour, O. Praem will be "regularly" celebrating the Sunday 11 am mass there as of this Sunday. Fr Barbour is described as the "long time prior of the Abbey from 1995-2017...now current chaplain to Catholic Answers." FB post also mentions that he grew up in South Pasadena and is a convert from the Episcopal Church. Any more interesting details are omitted.

Fr Barbour is something of a heavyweight in Catholic circles. His official thumbnail reads,

Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem., is a Norbertine of St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado, California. He grew up in South Pasadena and is a convert from the Episcopal Church. After earning a bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Fr. Hugh entered St. Michael's in 1982 and was ordained a priest in 1990. He earned a license in patristic theology at the Augustinianum and a doctorate in philosophy at the Angelicum in Rome. He has taught philosophy at St. Michael’s to the Abbey's junior professed seminarians studying for the priesthood since 1992 and was prior of the abbey from 1995 until 2017. Fr. Hugh has been active over the years in weekend parish ministry and in giving talks and retreats; he has served as chaplain of the St. Thomas More Society of Orange County and as censor deputatus of the Diocese of Orange, and he is a knight commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre. He began his chaplaincy at Catholic Answers in September 2017.

Starting with just that information, he puts any OCSP priest other than the bishop to shame. In fact, given his experience as a religious superior, it seems to me that he's the sort of person who should be much closer to the bishop than he is -- or indeed, at least someone who might be giving serious guidance to the sketchy collection of ex-Protestants Fr Bartus has been assembling in California up to now. Fr Barbour is also a son of the late Fr Carroll Barbour, the revered, although openly gay, rector of St Thomas Hollywood, our former TEC parish. Fr Hugh delivered the homily at Fr Carroll's retirement mass.

What this means is difficult to say. It appears that Fr Hugh was ousted from his position in the abbey last year, although he is only 58, still quite young for a Catholic priest. He appears no longer to live at the abbey and is currently listed in bulletins at Our Lady of Grace, El Cajon, CA, as "in residence". I take "in residence" to mean that he lives in the rectory and takes masses and hears confessions according to a schedule there, but he has a day job elsewhere in the Church. El Cajon is 91 miles from Irvine and a 90-minute Sunday morning drive.

Fr Jack Barker, retired from the Diocese of San Bernardino, also continues to celebrate masses at both BJHN and the new Murrieta storefront. However, Fr Barker is in his seventies and has had health issues.

What this means for Fr Bartus is difficult to say. Fr Barbour is more than a supply priest, and it's difficult for me to imagine him taking orders from Fr Bartus, given his age, experience, and education, although my impression of Barbour -- by coincidence, I sat in the same row with him once on a flight from LAX to New Orleans with a young boy traveling unaccompanied between us -- is that he's a very patient and good-humored man. But I don't think I'd mess with him.

My regular correspondent says,

The seating capacity of the Queen of Life chapel is only 65, and Fr Bartus is presumably still celebrating the Saturday vigil and the Sunday 9 am mass. Holy Martyrs looks potentially larger and the renovations and fittings---pews, altar rails, pulpit, altar with reredos---must be costing thousands of dollars. Instagram page shows an organ with six singers around it, labelled "choir practice."

There will be three weekday DW masses in addition to the Sunday celebration. Website outlines plans for Religious Ed, KofC, as well as the home school co-op. My bet is that the plan is for this to be the flagship location of the "SoCal Ordinariate." Of course this has yet to come to fruition, but the renovations and furnishings represent the only significant financial investment SoCal has made in six years other than some very fancy vestments.

However -- I double checked -- the Sunday morning masses at BJHN are 9:00 and 11:00. If we assume the 9:00 mass -- not sure if it has music, or if it's DW -- takes at least 45 minutes, this means it lets out at 9:45 or later, which doesn't allow Fr Bartus much time to make the hour's drive to Murrieta. So I'm dubious about the idea that he can do a 9:00 mass in Irvine and an 11:00 in Murrieta.

Also, the official word from the bishops implies that the Murrieta group is small, and the group is a mission:

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.

We'll have to see what develops. But if there is a way for Bp Lopes to make productive use of Fr Barbour's talents, which may not be fully deployed right now, it could be a game-changer for the OCSP.