What Really Happened In Tampa Bay?

My regular correspondent has done more research on Mr Mayer's background and the timeline of the Tampa Bay group's formation and demise. As already noted here, the explanation from Mr Mayer on a post that was briefly up on the group's website but taken down on June 12, 2017, was that Bp Parkes of the Diocese of St Petersburg had requested via Bp Lopes that the group-in-formation not proceed.

Unfortunately, I didn't think at the time to keep a record of what exactly was said in the post, and apparently it was taken down so quickly that I wouldn't have been able to copy it had I visited it a second time. I know it was there briefly, because Mr Mayer himself asked me to remove my reference to it here.

However, a post from May 12, 2017 at the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog substantiates at least some of what had been on the Tampa Bay group's website before it was taken down:

We’ve been asked to post information about this new group forming in Florida.

Here’s an excerpt of news from the site:

Philip Mayer, who formerly served as an Episcopal priest before becoming Catholic, was recently asked by the director of vocations and clergy development of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter to begin seeking to establish a community in the Tampa Bay area with the goal of building a parish. Once the community has been formed, Philip will, God willing, be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in order to say Mass for the new community and to lead it to becoming a parish.

We would like to invite you to come and celebrate Pentecost and pray with us for the formation of this community by joining us for Evensong (chanted evening prayer) and a potluck Sunday, June 4, 2017 at 5:00 PM at St. Mary Catholic Church, 15520 North Blvd, Tampa. Children are welcome.

We wish this new community well! Please send us some pictures to post!

Here's interesting fact number one: within a week of the group's first meeting, Bp Parkes appears to have asked Bp Lopes to shut it down; the announcement of the shutdown took place within the octave. My regular correspondent, however, discovered that a Facebook page for the group still exists, which "shows gatherings scheduled for June, July, and August which of course never took place".

But there's another, bigger question. Exactly whom did Mr Mayer report to in June 2017? The Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog post above says Mayer was "asked by the director of vocations and clergy development of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter to begin seeking to establish a community in the Tampa Bay area". However, my regular correspondent has discovered from public information available on the web that from September 6, 2011 to July 2017, Mayer was what he describes as a "Pastoral Provision candidate" in the Diocese of St Petersburg, attending the Boynton Beach seminary. During this time, he worked in various jobs in the chancery and elsewhere in the diocese, but he was never ordained.

So even in the May-June 2017 period, Mayer was by his own account a Pastoral Provision seminarian in the Diocese of St Petersburg. As my regular correspondent asks, "I recall that the local bishop got Bp Lopes to intervene. Why didn't he just call Mayer on the carpet?" Good question. Here's another. Mayer was a Pastoral Provision candidate for six years? Recall that Luke Reese, who had no MDiv and was in hindsight about as unsuitable as you can get, attended the St Meinrad seminary for only four. And diocesan seminarians spend only three years in seminary!

But Mayer was an ordained TEC priest, presumably with an MDiv -- yet he seemed to be making slow, even imperceptible, progress toward ordination in the Pastoral Provision. I'm wondering if the Diocese of St Petersburg was in the process of cutting Mayer loose, to tell the truth, and news that Mayer was pursuing ordination in the OCSP came as an unpleasant surprise to Bp Parkes, under whose nominal authority Mayer continued to be. Also, this comment at the post linked above discusses a two year period of formation for former Anglican priests established under the Pastoral Provision. So something was clearly hinky in Mayer's case.

Since August 1, 2017, Mayer has been Director of Campus Ministry at Santa Fe Catholic High School in Lakeland, FL. This is in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando. However, apparently as of January 2019, if not sooner, he'll be heading to St Augustine as a transitional deacon and priest. He'll serve an OCSP group that meets at the St Benedict the Moor mission, which is in the Diocese of St Augustine. One interpretation of all this is that the Diocese of St Petersburg would prefer not to have any further dealings with Mr Mayer.

The information on Mayer's prior career is that he served from 2008 to 2011 at a St Peter's Episcopal Church near Dallas, which I believe is St Peter's McKinney, TX. I believe he was an associate there, although the job info on the web says he was "pastor", which is not a formal title in TEC. If he was a vicar, it sounds as if the bishop wasn't all that warm about his service. It sounds as if his TEC career stalled, but somehow he wasn't able to make it to ordination in the Pastoral Provision after six years of trying.

I tend to agree with my regular correspondent's summation of Mayer's career to date:

I think Mayer got the idea for the group and then lights started flashing. But impossible to know, really. In any event, result was "Hit the road, Phil." What did you make of his account of his career in TEC? "Many fabulous offers, but went with marginal parish in Dallas." Seems to fit your profile of TEC no-hopers turning to The One True Church.

Why is the OCSP so intent on digging these guys up? In light of experience with Luke Reese, they aren't just ciphers, they're liabilities.