A More Encouraging Story

Fr Jonathan Erdman was ordained deacon in the OCSP in March 2017 and priest in July 2017. According to my regular correspondent, he seems to have had a solid, twelve-year career as a TEC clergyman; he left TEC only after trying unsuccessfully to save his job in a struggle with his vestry. In one of those unpublished "policies" that's sometimes followed and sometimes not, when he contacted the OCSP he was told that gathering a group was the ticket he needed punched to get ordained, and he gathered a group, Our Lady and St John, which meets at the St Martin of Tours Parish, Louisville, KY.

Apparently when he started, he worked in a facilities manager job with the Archdiocese of Louisville, but it doesn't seem to have been noticed up to now that he soon became an associate at the St Martin of Tours parish. This is unusual in itself -- while some OCSP priests serve as diocesan supply priests or parochial administrators in very small diocesan parishes, only one -- Luke Reese -- seems to have become an associate at a normal-size diocesan parish fulfilling a normal set of diocesan parish duties in addition to celebrating DW mass.

But now my regular correspondent has discovered that Fr Erdman is no longer at the St Martin of Tours parish, but as of June is now an associate at a larger diocesan parish, St Margaret Mary, Louisville. This says to me that Fr Erdman has transitioned into a full diocesan rotation of associates, and this in turn suggests to me that the archdiocese's vicar for clergy has decided he is a real Catholic priest. What a contrast to characters like Philip Mayer, who seems to have been someone the diocesan authorities preferred to cut loose.

How this may affect the Our Lady and St John group, still at the St Martin of Tours parish, is an interesting question. My regular correspondent says,

I counted 25 in the congregation in the OL&SJ July 15 Sunday mass pic posted on their FB page. If they are all Ordinariate members that is about triple the initial size of the group, so not too bad. But nowhere near a self-sustaining community.

Based on occasional remarks I hear from our parish clergy, the workload on associates is daunting. I'm only beginning to understand its full range. The impression we get is that the main work of an OCSP priest is wearing just the right vestments while saying the DW mass in just the right way. But I'm learning that saying mass isn’t a big part of an associate’s time. They are giving last rites, counseling big time, comforting the bereaved, visiting the sick, etc etc etc. This in turn makes me wonder how much time Fr Erdman, if he’s fully occupied at another parish, can give to 25 in an OCSP group. My regular correspondent comments,

I'm sure OL&SJ now includes people who never previously met an Anglican, but like the music, or the coffee hour, or being part of a small community. He may well feel they have served their purpose. There are a number of former OCSP clergy who have moved on to diocesan jobs and let their former groups fend for themselves or fold: Fr Chalmers, Fr Wagner, Fr Sly, to name a few. I don't get the feeling Fr Baaten is knocking himself out for St Augustine, San Diego. So Fr Erdman may well be moving up and on.

I think the lesson we might draw from this, at least tentatively, is that if OCSP priests are brought more fully into the actual work of the Church, Anglicanorum coetibus quickly fades in importance. But it's also a matter of serious concern that the great majority of OCSP priests or candidates have so far been proving themselves unsuited to the actual work of the Church, although when a diocese occasionally finds a keeper, he seems to be recognized in fairly short order and his talents put to more appropriate use.