Neuhaus was "conservative" for the time, although as a close adviser to Bush fils he was more of a neocon, of a stripe that quite possibly would be a never-Trumper now. This, however, seems compatible with Law's outlook, since by my informant's account, Law found many Protestants "too conservative". As the story of federal investigations into systematic Church coverup of abuse unfolds in the current Second Crisis, one issue that's worth pursuing is how much of a consensus existed across the political spectrum not to press the Church on these matters -- in return for not pushing Catholics to vote on matters like abortion and keep pro-abortion politicians in office, those same politicians would look the other way on abuse and gay clergy.
Law, as a powerful figure in the Church, would have been shepherding issues like this through, and although he took the fall for the First Crisis, the practices he apparently condoned or encouraged in Boston were and continue to be widespread in the Church, including in Latin America, where Law was a familiar figure. I suspect the Anglican outreach project will eventually prove to be consistent with other parts of Law's overall purpose, however inchoate.
I've spent a good part of six years looking at the Pastoral Provision and Anglicanorum coetibus here, and I'm not going to go into detail. However, one conclusion I've drawn on extensive reflection is that Anglican outreach in the Pastoral Provision was poorly thought through and poorly executed. Two individuals who've written histories of the Pastoral Provision, Fr Jack Barker (history here) and Msgr William Stetson (history here) leave a great deal unsaid. There's lots of bureaucratic hemming and hawing about Cardinal Seper and Secretary Levada, but nothing is said about then-Bishop Law in Stetson's narrative until 1980. The earliest mention in Barker's narrative is "in the days following" the 1976 TEC General Convention:
Fr. Parker was contacted by Bishop Bernard Law of Springfield Cape-Girardeaux, Missouri who said he would speak to the Apostolic Delegate to make it easier to get an appointment. he also referred him to Bishop Raymond Lessard of the diocese of Savannah, Georgia for personal contact It should be noted that both Bishops Law and Lessard were members of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) Ad Hoc Committee formed to deal with the question of receiving convert married ministers into the Catholic Church. Bishop Law was also the only American member of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity. A meeting took place at the Archbishop’s residence in Washington D.C. in April 1977. At this meeting were Fr. James Parker, the Provincial of the Society, Fr. Larry Lossing of New Smyrna Beach, Florida representing southeast members of the Society, and Fr. John D. Barker of Los Angeles, California representing the west coast members of the Society. The meeting was to explore what possibilities there might be for receiving Episcopal priests of this Society into the Roman Catholic Church; the stated goal was to be able to continue to function as Roman Catholic priests, even if married.
Somebody, for instance, encouraged and coordinated the efforts of Canon DuBois, Fr Barker, and others following the 1976 TEC General Convention that led five Episcopalian parishes to leave the denomination on the same Sunday in early 1977. They didn't just hold meetings over cups of tea, it would seem. Frs Brown and Barker went to Rome, and not just to look at the fountains. Who arranged this? Who vouched for Brown and Barker? Almost certainly Law was involved, although even now, for this to become public would cause some consternation in both New York and Rome. But even in the fall of 1976, Law must have had a firm impression of the movement that couldn't have been based on impulse. If these guys weren't solid, they were at least useful as idiots.
What continues to strike me after looking at this story over a period of years is how half-baked the whole Anglican scheme was and continues to be. The histories give vague descriptions of the Society of the Holy Cross, and the Pro-Diocese of St Augustine of Canterbury, but these were organizations of no particular authority. It wasn't until 1978 that any steps were taken to set up an ecclesiastical structure. Per Barker:
Bishop Bernard Law invited Frs. Barker and Brown to meet with a canonist in Chicago to explore together the form of an Anglican "common identity" in the Catholic Church. In addition to the above, representatives of SSC and the Evangelical Catholic Mission (ECM) 13 were also invited by Bishop Law. The three groups met with Bishop Law’s Canonist at the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare Airport. The Anglicans present favored the proposal on structure modeled on the Military Ordinariate, but the small number of parochial communities, the death of Cardinal Seper who had taken a personal interest in this cause, together with the reluctance on the part of the American Catholic hierarchy mitigated against such a possibility.But first, they had to hold a synod to figure out what the "Anglican patrimony" was. Meantime, multimillion-dollar litigation was under way, the parishes that had left TEC could not perform any function that required a bishop; the parishes had no adult supervision, and there was no definite plan or schedule for them to resolve any of these things. But Law was getting things done!
It would take more than a decade for Frs Barker and Brown to be ordained Catholic priests, which was one of the main initial goals. Their parishes never went in -- but two generations of lawyers put their kids through college with the proceeds of the resulting litigation. We're back to "by their fruits". What problem was Bernard Law trying to solve? And as of 1978, we're still decades away from Anglicanorum coetibus and that whole debacle.
