I have been a parishioner at Our Lady of the Atonement (OLOTA) for the last 23 years. In March of 2019 the Archdiocese of San Antonio released a list of priests and religious that were credibly accused of sexual wrongdoing. Many priests and religious on the list have been known to us for a long time. But, I was stopped in my tracks when I came across Dn. Orr's name. Many of us who have been parishioners at OLOTA for a long time knew that there was a problem with Dn. Orr's ordination. It almost didn't happen, but we never were told the reason. The reason floated around the parish was something to do with insubordination, but none of us in the pews really knew.This contributes to a growing impression I have that successive archbishops went to great lengths to tolerate Our Lady of the Atonement's independent ways, but under Abp Garcia-Siller, things went too far -- I would guess through some combination of out-of-control spending and multiple surprises relating to Dcn Orr.A few days before this list came out Dn. Orr passed away. I knew Dn. Orr pretty well. I always loved his "fire and brimstone" sermons. Over the years I had many conversations with him. We were together on eight pilgrimages to Europe and I was saddened to learn of his untimely retirement from ministry. We even had a lengthy conversation about his retirement plans. In the 23 years that I knew Dn. Orr I never knew him to be in bad health. So when he passed away this year just before his fifty-ninth birthday, I was shocked. I attended his funeral Mass at OLOTA and was dismayed to learn that Fr. Phillips was forbidden to be part of the Mass.
I wondered about all of this. First, Dn, Orr's untimely passing, the list put out by the Archdiocese, and then Fr. Phillips not being allowed to participate in the funeral made me think that something was really wrong here. It immediately occurred to me that perhaps Dn. Orr took his own life. I expressed this thought to Fr. Phillips in an e-mail. He replied that the charge against Dn. Orr was unfounded and that he himself investigated the charge and said there was nothing to it. When I showed up at Mass the next Sunday I was met by Fr. Phillips and was soundly and loudly lambasted for even thinking something like this. I was amused by this display. I was told by Fr. Phillips that I could attend Mass, but I knew that he no longer had the power to remove me from the parish. Now everyone at our parish knew that Fr. Phillips and Dn. Orr were joined at the hip. Both could do no wrong and if you wanted to stay at the parish, you'd better not insinuate anything to the contrary. It is a joke to think that Fr. Phillips investigated Dn. Orr and found no wrongdoing. In fact, in the list that was put out by the Archbishop, the Archbishop makes mention that the diocese was never made aware of the charge made against Dn. Orr. In the interim we have learned that it was not one charge that was made, but several.
. . . Needless to say my relationship with Fr. Phillips has deteriorated dramatically. We do not speak to each other at all. In fact in all of the years that I attended OLOTA I went to the Latin Mass. I would only go to the AU Mass on holy days of obligation or on other feast days where the Latin Mass would not be offered. Two weeks ago in our parish the Latin Mass was ended, so now I attend another parish that offers the Latin Mass. This is all so sad. As we are learning from your blog, Fr. Phillips has a lot to answer for.
The visitor forwarded another e-mail, which he'd sent directly to Fr Phillips. An excerpt reads,
Over the years I have seen many good parishioners, benefactors and priests chased away from our parish by you and Dn. Orr. I would wonder about this fact, but then a lightbulb lit and I knew the reason. I went back and thought about the debacle with the teaching nuns, the run-ins you had with every bishop who served in the diocese, the priests that served at the parish, the many benefactors, large and small that you and Dn. Orr chased away. It all became very obvious to me what was going on. I have long felt that both you and Dn. Orr missed your true calling and that was not being a priest or a deacon, but where your talents truly lie, and that is being business men. You both had the demeanor and the talent to be unscrupulous business entrepreneurs. I truly think you both would have made it big.On one hand, this is all water under the bridge at this point. Fr Phillips is clearly being edged farther and farther out of the parish, although I noted the plaintive appeal in the recent parish report that a donation to Our Lady's Dowry is not a donation to the parish. This suggests that separate projects under Phillips's control that effectively masquerade as Catholic charities continue.
A question that comes up for me as I learn more about Fr Phillips is exactly what happened between him and the TEC Bishop of Rhode Island to make him leave there and go to Texas. The version that's been accepted for many years is that Phillips was a "brave Rhode Island Episcopal priest" who sacrificed everything to become an Anglican Use Catholic. But we've all been around the block enough times here to suspect there are two sides to such stories, as we've seen most recently with the "Gilbertines". The truth of Phillips's departure from Rhode Island may never be known, but some people out there may yet be in a position to provide insight.
Nevertheless, the problem for Fr Lewis and Bp Lopes will be to find a way forward, since discontinuing the Latin mass is clearly driving away additional parishioners, and it looks as though the extent of the parish's financial problems is only beginning to come to light.
What's increasingly plain is that the picture of OLA that had built up over 40 years as the paradigmatic Anglican Use success story was pretty much a sham, a matter of smoke and mirrors. I think the smoke and mirrors continue with the North American ordinariate, and Bp Lopes will have to solve the problems beginning to crop up at OLA more than once, and on a larger scale. The question is whether the talent to do this is available for such a marginal operation.
