As I have noted before, Christ the King is very much about the Meeks family, three of whom are on the "Staff" page, along with Deacon Reick, who appears to be a near contemporary of Fr Meeks and has been at Christ the King since at least 2003. As the interior of the church suggests, the parish is not after "Traddies;" the website mentions its "Charismatic roots" and its use of "traditional hymnody and contemporary praise songs" and mass is celebrated versus populum.It's hard to see what the appeal is of a separate parish that repeats "low church" features that you can easily find in nearby diocesan parishes -- unless it's the personal ministry of Fr Meeks. To that end, this may be an explanation for why parochial vicars (now two of them) seem to be assigned to the parish but aren't shown on the web site.The only thing that makes it onto the Facebook page is a weekly video of Fr Meeks' Sunday homily. Fr Meeks is 70, the retirement age for local diocesan priests; apparently in good health, but obviously he will not be around forever. Appointing a 63 year old Parochial Vicar seems short-sighted. [Fr Kirk does not yet show up on the Staff page, though -- jb] But maybe he's hard to work with.
Fr John Worgul is described on-line, though not on the website, as a Parochial Vicar at Christ the King, but he confines his ministry to St Timothy, Catonsville and a diocesan parish. Perhaps Fr Meeks is not interested in an energetic younger colleague.
And in addition, while statistics have yet to be published after seven years, we must assume membership at Christ the King is somewhere in the low three figures, with total membership in the Baltimore area ordinariate parishes somewhere in the mid three figures -- but these communities now have two buildings, four priests, a deacon, and a pastoral associate among them. And the largest, Christ the King, isn't all that big on the fuss and feathers that's supposed to justify Anglicanorum coetibus.
What problem are we trying to solve?
