Of Pasadena, Converts, And White Knuckles

I've had a couple of reactions to Monday's post on the Pasadena OCSP group. You will recall that Ms Nicolosi. an associate professor of creative writing, had many favorable things to say about the fledgling Our Lady of Grace group there, in contrast to anything else in the San Gabriel Valley and beyond (which apparently covers a good deal of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles). My regular correspondent passed on to me a photo of a recent mass there, apparently from Facebook:

There may be others in the view out of camera range, but I can count four in the "pews", with an altar party of three. There is a portable communion rail with a capacity of two, and I suspect that even with that limitation, the line is short. My correspondent asked if the lady in the chapel veil is Ms Nicolosi, with the gentleman to her left being Motorcycle Guy, but I can't answer. Perhaps Ms Nicolosi can set us straight herself.

My reaction is twofold. First, it seems to me that you'd have to go some distance to find a worship environment more provisional and less reverent than this, even with Dan Schutte's greatest hits on the menu. At least there'd be a guitar and tambourine, huh? Folding chairs and an altar on rollers. Is this what floats Ms Nicolosi's boat? Er, why? What's in it for her, because something clearly is?

A bigger question is this. As far as I'm aware, Fr Bayles lives in the San Luis Obispo, CA area. Let's take a typical town there, Arroyo Grande, which according to Google Maps is 176.2 miles from Pasadena. A round trip to say DW mass in Pasadena is thus 352.4 miles. The 2018 mileage reimbursement rate is 54.5 cents per mile. A supply priest is entitled to, at minimum, mileage plus a stipend. This means that, irrespective of stipend or any other expenses, Fr Bayles is entitled to $192.05 for his mileage. The drive from Arroyo Grande to Pasadena is also over three hours. I simply don't know what other arrangements have to be made.

Can the half a dozen people in attendance in the photo come remotely close to just reimbursing Fr Bayles's mileage each week? There's got to be a story here, and this ought to be just up Ms Nicolosi's alley. Perhaps she'll tell it.

A visitor also reacted to Ms Nicolosi's claims of white-knuckling mass anywhere else in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and my regular correspondent's remarks about Mrs Gyapong and converts:

Being a cradle Catholic of some years, I have known (and still do know) many converts. As to the truism that converts are more fervent then cradle Catholics, pfft. Some are, some aren’t. At least half (maybe more) of the converts I have known over time have jumped in with great zeal and then, petered out when the newness wears off and the drudgery sets in. The distinguishing thing about the converted person that seems to make them a fervent Catholic is their understanding of what they have chosen. Converts I have known with very little background in the scriptures and no other strong faith tradition are the most likely to drift away or become run of the mill Catholics without some other, more inspiring figure in their lives.

Converts who are extremely well versed in scripture, very well informed of their previous and possibly other faith traditions seem to better understand what it is they are choosing and why their old faith traditions fell short of Catholicism. Their quest for the knowledge of God was very strong in their previous faith tradition and so it continues and grows through Catholicism. If the most important things to you in your previous faith tradition are visual, the buildings are pretty, the vestments are elaborate and the ritual feels the most churchy, you are not going to recognize the beauty of the Eucharist in a Mass with distractive music or distractive art/décor or distractively dressed congregants or a distractive priest celebrant or all of the above.

The Mass is still the Mass in English or Latin, in Ordinary Form, Extraordinary Form, in the Tridentine Latin form or Divine Worship the Missal. White knuckling it through a Mass with distractions (and sometimes liturgical abuses) is a choice. So is attending Mass in your local parish where, if liturgical abuses are taking place, the parishioners should be notifying their local ordinary in a charitable way so the abuses can be corrected. If there are no real abuses occurring, just Mass you don’t find appealing, why haven’t you volunteered to start a choir group that sings in chant for only one of the Masses? Why haven’t you organized a group to raise funds to replace the altar linens, the artwork, the stations, the paint scheme, whatever it is that is distracting you during Mass.

You also have the choice to go to another parish, to another diocese. If you have a house that is to become your home, you pour your heart and soul into beautifying it, fortifying it and making it your own so that it becomes your refuge, your safe place, your happy gathering place for family and friends. If you hop houses because you don’t like the paint scheme, you don’t like the landscaping, you want a bigger kitchen, if you aren’t willing to fix the things that bother you about your house, you will always be searching for the perfect house. If you are always on the lookout for a better house, no place is really home.

But how can mass in a school cafeteria with folding chairs, an altar on rollers, and a portable altar rail be any kind of home at all?

I've got another question, though. Ms Nicolosi appears to be a cradle Catholic, of a sort. From her description of her practice of Catholicism in the quote in Monday's post, she and Motorcycle Guy flit, in her word, from parish to parish. That suggests she's not registered anywhere, and it suggests even more strongly that she and her husband don't pledge anywhere. Real Catholics support the Church, and I think the implication is that they engage in what our pastor calls sacrificial giving.

My question is whether Ms Nicolosi and Motorcylce Guy ever put more than a token amount in the basket anywhere, and that probably includes Pasadena. But I get the impression that whatever else we may think of Fr Bayles, he is spending a considerable amount from his own pocket just to come to Pasadena every Sunday to say mass. Or maybe Ms Nicolosi is supporting this expense herself. She's an associate professor where, based on a web search, associate professors seem to earn somewhere from $50-80,000 per year, and as far as I can see, she and Motorcycle Guy are childless. Maybe she can make clear how she supports this fledgling effort. My e-mail is on the right.