Thursday, October 31, 2019

I Don't Quite Get It

The Toronto conference sponsored by the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society is coming up in two weeks. The list of speakers has been subject to last-minute changes, with fr Phillips out, Fr Barker in, and Bp Lopes most recently added to the program. So, what will Bp Lopes bring to the party? My regular correspondent muses,
I predict that Bp Lopes will not be able to deliver a very optimistic State of the Union, if that is what is on offer. He hasn’t been left a lot of time to come up with anything more substantive. Previous to the Presentation, Montgomery start-up—-not really a triumph of evangelism—the latest OCSP communities to be formed were Holy Martyrs, Murrieta in 2017 —- another poach job —- and St Aelred, Athens, GA, a small gathered community supporting the ordination of Gregory Tipton the same year.

In 2016 two other small communities, also apparently gathered to justify the ordinations of local men, were created, one in Orlando and one in Louisville. Meanwhile, in that same time seven communities have closed, in Boerne,TX; Pinecrest, FL; St Louis Pk, MN; Indianapolis, IN; Savannah, GA; Corpus Christi, TX, and Greenville, SC. It appears that the “quarterly” Ordinariate Observer will be a semi-annual publication again this year. Nothing to see here, folks—-literally.

It's possible to get a sense that Houston has been trying a new business model, with gathered groups proving unproductive. Instead, they seem to be looking for angels who'll fund bigger startup packages for groups of cradle Catholics who for whatever reason (though they probably include not wanting Latin, Filipino, Vietnamese, or Other clergy and fellow parishioners) prefer not to be in a local diocese. The secret is to find someone with deep pockets who doesn't get along with the bishop, it would seem -- not necessarily a recipe that can be widely duplicated.

But since Bp Lopes is unlikely to go on record being honest about this sort of thing, he'll just deliver bromides. The audience, I suspect, will be chiefly Mrs Gyapong and a contingent of Bp Lopes's yes-clergy. My regular correspondent raises another question:

Fr Phillips remains a hero to a certain contingent in the Ordinariate blogosphere, despite the fairly conclusive evidence that he entered the OCSP just ahead of a diocesan posse and even then was only accepted on condition that he relinquish leadership of the parish. Efforts to clean up his messes are ongoing and may be too little too late—-in any event, a major drain on the Ordinariate’s limited resources.

Yet some still regard him as a shining star, including Mrs G, a woman who has never accepted the fact that John Hepworth sold TAC a bill of goods and has not himself reconciled with the Church despite the fact that he apparently has no congregation, let alone a see that needs him in a clerical role.

Apparently some people need stars and heroes. I think that for the most part such people (the stars) have deep flaws, which their adoring fans make it difficult for them to confront honestly. I am sure that Fr Phillips was told in no uncertain terms not to leave the doghouse, and had to reluctantly withdraw his acceptance of the AC Society’s invitation. But they should never have offered it.

That the Plan B hero should be Fr Barker is, if anything, more difficult to understand. He began the Episcopalian pseudo-migration to the Catholic Church by unilaterally taking his TEC parish, St Mary of the Angels Hollywood, out of TEC with absolutely no plan for how it would ever become Catholic -- and in any event, that hotheaded move resulted in seven years of wasteful and extravagant litigation. The parish in the wake of the departure was bitterly divided into multiple factions.

But predictably, his track record and that of the parish were completely unacceptable to two successive Archbishops of Los Angeles, and the parish never went in, while Barker himself could apparently be ordained only by leaving the area, and probably only through the repeated good offices of Cardinal Law.

The St Mary of the Angels parish he left behind has continued (and continues to the present) to be little more than a full-employment program for litigation attorneys. The trail of destruction Fr Barker began in Hollywood alone has had legal costs totaling in the high eight figures over a more than 40-year period -- the St Mary's dissidents' attorneys issue subpoenas across the US as I write this now.

Although Fr Barker continues to promise a book or books, I can't imagine that he'll have anything to say in Toronto beyond the very sketchy account he's already published of his role in the St Mary of the Angels saga. I suspect there will be little insight and no remorse for the rash judgment and recklessness that characterized that decades-long phase of his career.

But he's a hero. Except that heroes have fruits. Do men. gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? No heroes produced the very iffy parish now on Finley Avenue in Hollywood, or for that matter the very iffy movement of which he's become the only available grand old man.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent comments,

At least Fr Phillips would have been a draw, however misguided one may consider his fans to be. I don’t think anyone actually perceives Fr Barker as a hero. I think he was a very distant second choice, and with next to no one having registered for the conference (liturgies are obviously free and open to all) Bp Lopes was persuaded at the last minute to add his own name to the marquee.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

And Even More On The History Of The Atonement Parish

I've heard over the past two years from about half a dozen long-term parishioners at the Our Lady of the Atonement parish in San Antonio, most of them now former parishioners. Especially in recent weeks, several have provided informed analysis of the parish's history and its current problems. Here's another perspective. It's worth noting that this visitor disagrees with other visitors, which is only to be expected given the time span and different viewpoints involved.
First, I have known Nathan Phillips for many years. Whenever I have spoken to him he has always been very polite. As far as I know he is a good husband and father. He and his wife have two adopted children. He seems to have put together a small business doing renovation work to support his family. I was previously unaware of this. There have been some unkind words used here to describe him which I think is unfair.

I think it is safe to say he would not have found employment in Mr Dolan's company without his father's (Fr Phillips) influence. I do not believe that he would have been able to engineer some kind of a maintenance agreement with OLOTA without Fr. Phillips's direct input. As to the large salary that Nathan was reportedly receiving, I find that questionable, but as we have seen there has been no oversight on monies spent by Fr Phillips, so who knows.

Secondly, when Archbishop Gomez arrived in San Antonio, he inherited a poorly run diocese. This malfeasance and mismanagement goes back at least to the two previous Archbishops of the diocese. Knowing this, one of the first things he did shortly after being made Archbishop was to summon all the priests of the diocese to the chancery. Fr Phillips told me that this was a mandatory meeting, no excuses. According to Fr Phillips, this was not a warm feel good introduction kind of meeting. In fact, the priests were dressed down.

Fr Phillips told me that Gomez said that he was not going to let any priest in this diocese take him to hell. This does not sound like, at least to me, that Gomez was going to try and get along with any priest or parish, including OLOTA; things were going to change. I do agree with a comment made by one of the visitors to your blog, that Gomez did come out to OLOTA to confer confirmation, but only on one occasion. After that it was auxiliary bishops.

To my knowledge, Gomez never returned. Another incident comes to mind regarding Fr Phillips and Archbishop Gomez. It appears that Fr Phillips took it upon himself to do something; I don't recall what that was, but it was a violation of some kind. Archbishop Gomez summoned Fr Phillips to the chancery and, as Fr Phillips related to me, the Archbishop "went up one side of him and down the other." Gomez was really angry and used some pretty harsh language. He also said that he would not tolerate this kind of disobedience again. I say this to show that Gomez was not out to get along with everybody, including OLOTA, but to bring about change.

Thirdly, giving some thoughts to Monday's post, what is to become of OLOTA? Well, to start out, as I have mentioned, there is a very good chance that the archdiocese will get the parish back for pennies on the dollar. What Archbishop Garcia-Siller had in mind for the parish and school is anybody's guess. I do know that there are a lot of failing parishes in the diocese with old buildings which are greatly in need of repair and renovation. The archbishop has proposed doing away with these old and poorly attended parishes and building three mega churches.

As you may guess this has been met with some resistance, but the big problem here is money to bring this about. San Antonio is a very large diocese, the seventh largest city in the country, but a poor diocese. Some years back I went to Mass at a parish in San Antonio, because of a particular priest, and found that they could not raise one thousand dollars in that parish to repair the sound system which had been in need of repair for a very long time. I thought at the time that that would be chump change for the collection taken up at OLOTA.

My guess is that your realtor visitor is right on target with his thoughts for the parish to become an office complex or residential units. I also agree that Bishop Lopes and Fr Lewis are woefully unprepared to correct the situation created by Fr Phillips and Dcn Orr. I wonder what would be on the menu in a medieval restaurant? [see below]

Finally, to the visitor who said that he called the chancery to find out if the nuns were being evicted from the diocese, he may be correct in what the chancery told him, but what they told him is not true. I personally spoke to the three nuns the night before they left OLOTA and they told me that the archbishop went behind their backs and called the motherhouse in Hanceville, AL to have them removed from the diocese. They were in tears. I believe the nuns.

Medieval Times offers a four-course utensil-free meal. According to its website,
We currently have nine Castles: Kissimmee, FL, Buena Park, CA, Schaumburg, IL., Hanover, MD., Lyndhurst, NJ, Myrtle Beach, SC, Dallas, TX, Lawrenceville, GA., and Toronto, ON. . . . We are currently building the kingdom’s 10th castle in Scottsdale, AZ which is planned to open in Summer of 2019!
I would think San Antonio, a tourist destination with many young families, would be a very good place to consider a further location.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

And Yet More Perspective On Our Lady Of The Atonement

Highly informative and worthwhile comments on Our Lady of the Atonement continue to mount up, and they've gotten to be long enough that I can't deal with one day's input in the next day's post.

I think this is worth the extra time, because OLA and Fr Phillips were presented as a great success story in the runup to the North American ordinariate. but as events have rolled out, it turns out to have been a case of smoke and mirrors stemming largely from one man's self-promotion. This is inevitably a reflection on Anglicanorum coetibus and a potential explanation for why the overall enterprise has been such a disappointment.

A visitor gives more perspective on how OLA had previously fit in with other parishes in the Archdiocese of San Antonio:

Your puzzlement over the placement of Msgr. Kurzaj might be from lack of knowledge of the San Antonio archdiocese. The Bandera, TX parish that Msgr. Kurzj came from is VERY conservative and there are large pockets of ultra-conservative German and Polish immigrants in and around San Antonio, Bandera being one of those areas. Fr. Jan Klak is of Polish descent and a very conservative pastor of St. Anthony Mary Claret parish out in Northwest San Antonio (OLOTA is also in NW San Antonio) which could have been one of the major feeder parishes to OLOTA before Fr.Klak could build his school, but because of experiences his parishioners were having with OLOTA, Fr. Klak allowed a home school co-op in his parish, which, has since become quite robust, while they are raising funds to build their own Catholic school (the parish is about 20 yrs or so old- they were not allowed to build a school until they paid off their debt for building the Church, which they have).

Conservative Catholics from the more liberal parishes often attend masses there as Fr. Klak celebrates one of the most reverent OF masses in the San Antonio area. The Polish priest led parishes I am familiar with in the area closest to OLOTA are much closer to the Ordinariate liturgy in the sense of style (the vestments, the chalice, the candlesticks, the choir and music selections, the use of incense regularly, etc.) than the other OF parishes in San Antonio.

I would guess that Abp. Garcia-Siller placed Msgr. Kurzaj at OLOTA because A) he is a very experienced pastor, B) he is very loyal to the Church and understands its hierarchy, and C) he is conservative and supportive of reverent liturgy and Abp. Garcia-Siller did not want to provoke the parishioners with a modern liturgy type priest. The Archbishop misjudged the crowd -- he thought they didn’t like him because he was too liberal, thus he appointed a conservative priest; they didn’t like him because he was the Archbishop. No one put in that place would have been treated any differently by the Fr Phillips Crowd.

The fact that some parishioners rose up with metaphorical pitchforks and torches is more a reflection on the cabal that was whipping up anti-diocesan sentiment than the overlooked mortification of the pro-diocesan parishioners who upon seeing the true face of the rebellion, simply melted away.

If Fr. Phillips had been replaced without all the Ordinariate drama, OLOTA would have continued to draw conservative families from the surrounding Northwest area of San Antonio because they are the ONLY conservative Catholic school within 25 or more miles that does not have a multi-year waiting list. LET THAT SINK IN. The truly conservative parishes in the Northwest part of the diocese that are not already overcrowded are all fairly small or fairly new and do not have their own schools. OLOTA was a bird’s nest on the ground and should have grown into a wonder and jewel of Catholic education but Fr. Phillips's ego and his feud with all authority got in the way.

The Atonement Academy had several growth spurts and could have supported the new expansion but every time the growth of the non-parishioner student body became too great (Fr Phillips had a policy that the student population of parishioners to non-parishioners could not be less than 60%), Fr Phillips would have a strong arm campaign to insist incoming families join the parish or they would restrict enrollment. OLOTA parish was not and is not big enough to pay for that school.

The business model had to include Catholic kids from other parishes and it could be successful today if they had stayed in the diocese and played by the rules. The fact that it is in a death spiral is all on Fr Phillips and his pitchfork wielding friends. Sadly he led many people down a very tragic, broken path. And left many, many Catholic parents with one less option for a good Catholic education for their children. That’s on Fr Phillips AND the Archbishop of San Antonio. Shame on both of them.

That’s what really gets my goat.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that even at the supposedly successful OLA Anglican Use parish, the draw was that it was a conservative diocesan parish in a convenient area. The parish didn't mind a thee-thou liturgy as long as there was a reverent, visually appealing mass with good music. The school was also convenient (though the visitor raises the interesting issue that it didn't have a waiting list like the others in the area). But once Houston got involved and began to insist that this wasn't just a convenient diocesan parish, it was a boutique operation for members only, the bottom fell out, although the seeds of failure had already been planted.

It seems to me that there has been a misreading of the Anglican market from the start, viz, from the time of the 1976 TEC General Convention. Fr Barker, who will keynote the upcoming Toronto conference, led the St Mary of the Angels parish into 40 years of desert wandering, although it's starting to sound like those folks are never quite going to make it out. Yet he's apparently, after Fr Phillips withdrew as keynoter, the only other qualified ex-Anglican to represent the movement in North America. I know several now-Catholic laymen, ex-Anglican priests, who'd give a very different perspective.

I hope other diocesan bishops will pick up this message and recognize an important key to evangelization is to work with existing strengths, reverent masses, solid schools, credible fundraising. Anglicanorum cpoetibus is proving to be just a swing and a miss.

Monday, October 28, 2019

Disinvestment And The Atonement Parish

As we learn more about the $12 million empty shell of the Atonement school, which would require a further $3 million to finish it out, the question naturally comes up what the options are for the Archdiocese of San Antonio, which as far as we know holds the paper on the project. The school's enrollment has been declining, as has "membership" in the parish. The discontinuance of the Latin mass has apparently lost another hundred or more Sunday massgoers, but ordinariate policy has been not to support Latin masses.

My regular correspondent wondered what the value of the property would be should the archdiocese have to foreclose and regain its investment. (I've said here already that the school would make a great location for a Medieval Times restaurant franchise.) However, a visitor from San Antonio is in the real estate business, so I passed the question on to him. He replied,

The location is ideally situated to be a church and school for the Archdiocese. It's in an exploding growth corridor, there is not another parish for several miles, in either direction. I believe this would be their first approach. That would have to be initiated by Bishop Lopes -- so many canonical strings attached, et. al.

Beyond that, it could easily be developed into a multiuse facility; office, residential, retail. It would be extremely valuable. It could probably bring 20M or more, if the right buyer were motivated. It's over 17 acres of land and the buildings are well maintained.

This, in other words, was probably what Abp Garcia-Siller had in mind when he placed Msgr Kurzaj at the parish in early 2017. Instead, the property is now intended for a boutique use with declining appeal. A charismatic figure who could credibly step into Fr Phillips's shoes might bring it off. Instead, there's Fr Lewis, whose track record even in areas like building maintenance hasn't been encouraging. My regular correspondent reacted,
I think the optics of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, having taken its case to the Vatican unsuccessfully and been required to turn over OLA to the OCSP, then forcing the parish into bankruptcy and repossessing it, would be pretty terrible. The archdiocese must have approved the new construction and agreed to finance it, however unwise a decision it was on the part of the parish to expand the school. This is not analogous to the Diocese of Orange taking over the Crystal Cathedral.

Of course if the OCSP ultimately fails, that is another matter. Or if it initiates the return voluntarily—-a humiliating turn of events which would mark the effective end of Lopes’s career, I would imagine. Fr Phillips was a priest of the Archdiocese of San Antonio for 34 years. What he got up to, he got up to on the watch of Archbishops Flores, Gomez, and Garcia-Siller, and that includes an apparently ill-advised construction project on the school. I wonder what Abp G-S’s long-term plan was for the parish, had he been successful in retaining it while getting rid of Fr Phillips.

I don't know if the archbishop meant Msgr Kurzaj to be just an interim placeholder at Atonement, but it appears that he's overseen an extensive restoration at the St Stanislaus parish along traditional lines. Since he came from Poland, he would have had little in common with the Texans in that parish, yet he seems to have been an effective leader nevertheless. The same might well have applied to Atonement, especially since the membership there was heavily cradle Catholic, not Anglican converts.

As an observer of clerical assignments in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles -- promising associates cycle through our parish, often as a last assignment before they go off to be administrators -- I have the impression that vicars for clergy look for well-formed priests with a certain level of confidence and poise and then trust that with those qualities, they can do well at a new parish.

The problem is that, coming from Episcopalian seminaries, or even a rag-tag collection of Reformed or Evangelical backgrounds, the clergy in the ordinariate are pretty much by definition not well formed as Catholic priests. Nor do they get much exposure to real Catholic priests, especially not the sort that associates get in a rectory. So they're basically making things up as they go along with their Anglican or other Protestant experience as a guide, though there's a contingent of young seminary graduates who couldn't even start careers as Protestants, so for them, there's almost no experience to draw on at all.

This is not a formula for success. But my correspondent's suggestion that there are career-ending contingencies possible here for Bp Lopes is ominous.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

And Still More On Fr Phillips, The Nuns, And The Family Business

I continue to receive comments and updates on the various issues connected with Our Lady of the Atonement and Fr Phillips. Regarding the nuns, a visitor comments,
When Archbishop Gomez took over in San Antonio, OLOTA had a rocky relationship with the archdiocese. Archbishop Gomez tried very hard to repair that rift. He personally (not an auxiliary bishop) conferred the sacrament of Confirmation on the students at OLA school. He was well aware of the history of the parish. It was no secret Fr Phillips had vowed publicly to never have another order of nuns/sisters as a part of his school. It was no secret to the Archdiocese that OLOTA had a vacant house that had formerly been a convent. It seems that Fr Phillips went looking for the contemplative nuns (my speculation here--perhaps to prevent Archbishop Gomez from finding some teaching sisters to place there!)

. . . The nuns were called back to the Mother House in Hanceville, not evicted by Archbishop Garcia-Siller. I called the archdiocese myself and asked point blank. I was told unequivocally that Archbishop Garcia-Siller had not kicked the nuns out of San Antonio. In 2016 the population of the Mother House in Hanceville had dropped. . . . So was the archdiocese lying or was the story circulated by Fr Phillips on his blog in a post that was deleted soon after it was posted the real truth? I know what I believe.

. . . , I do not think it is fair to characterize Fr Phillips’s motivation as being “out to enrich himself and his family”. I think the truth is somewhere closer to him being motivated by Faith but derailed by substituting his own private judgement for the messy, sometimes frustrating hierarchy of the Church.

Regarding the family's employment at the parish or its position as a beneficiary of business dealings, I've received quite a bit of information on Fr Phillips's son, Nathan.
My recollection on the new building contract was that Father P gave the contract to his son's (Nathan) construction company which raised all our eyebrows at the time.

I cannot verify if that was before or after the Dolans left. . . maybe that's why they left?

I would see the construction trucks with "Phillips Contracting" on them. Funny thing is one day out of the blue a different company started coming and Phillips Contractors were gone. It was odd like everything there was.

Maybe you can verify all this with your other OLA contacts.

I proceeded to run this by them, and they provided additional perspectives. One replied,
Nathan Phillips worked for Mr Dolan, for a time. I am not sure in what capacity. Prior to working for Mr Dolan, as far as I know Nathan worked for a local super market chain in the produce department. I would doubt that Nathan had the experience or resources to be a construction contractor. Especially on a large project like this. I would add that Nathan's wife worked as a teacher at OLOTA.

According to what Fr. Phillips told me the reason that Mr Dolan's company didn't get the contract for the new construction was that, as I mentioned to you, Mr Dolan appeared at Fr Phillips office, threw his keys on Fr Phillips desk, said that he had enough of Fr Phillips and this place, turned and walked out. I also mentioned that there was probably a lot more to this story, but that I didn't know what that may be. If Fr Phillips is telling the truth, it would appear that Mr Dolan left before the new contract was awarded.

I never saw or heard of trucks with Phillips construction company signs on them, but that is not to say they don't exist. But, if this company exists I would think it has nothing to do with Fr Phillips's family.

Another replied,
At the height of his time there, Dolan gave a job to Nathan Phillips, who is not very bright, is not well educated, had a spotty career up to that point. Nathan gained an instant career as a construction project manager and lucrative job. This power structure and Nathan's position remained as long as the contract for the construction project lasted. Once this project began to dwindle, Nathan was let go and THEN, Dolan and his company was gone. I never heard, and never cared about the details of his departure. He was spoken of as a saint prior to his departure and as evil once he was gone. That was a common m.o. at the Atonement.

Nathan then started his own construction company and once the newest expansion was begun, Nathan was retained by the parish as the owner's representative. I know for a fact this position carried a six figure remuneration for at least one year and perhaps two.

Understand, this project that Phillips and Orr ram-rodded through, as a memorial to Christopher Phillips extraordinary holiness, and conveniently provided a cushy arrangement for Fr's near-do-well only son, was ill-advised, expensive and is now a tremendous burden to the parish and the ordinariate. It cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000,000.00 (on which they make payments towards $9,000,000.00 every month) but was terminated before the bulk of it was built out. It is a beautiful shell of a building that looks like a medieval castle -- on the outside. Except for a couple of classrooms, they can't use it, because it is completely unfinished on the inside, and it would cost at least 3 million more dollars to finish out.

And another replied,
My progeny were still in attendance when the Dolans left and I had met them a time or two. I have no firsthand knowledge of why they left. There was silence, then rumors, but very little character sniping because the Dolans' financial contributions to the Church and school were so large and well-known. Everyone I knew assumed they got sideways with either Fr Phillips or Dcn Orr and chose to part ways. That is usually what made people resign and then disappear in the middle of the night at some odd time. It was the same pattern, the Dolans were golden and untouchable until they weren’t, just like Dr Hollingshead (a Headmaster), Mr Knox (the Music Director/teacher), the Murrays (Music Directors and teachers), the Athletic Director, the list could go on and on.

. . . Usually when there was just silence from the administration, like maybe no one will notice that two teachers both left in the middle of the week in the middle of the night in the middle of a semester, it was because the people had been asked to make a sacrifice too big. If they just got sideways or disagreed, there seemed to be very active whisper campaigns to make everyone else think the people that left were somehow dangerous to the spiritual heath of the community. It was very important to drive the Devil from their midst…

During this season of Halloween and witches, it strikes me how similar the Atonement community was to some Puritan settlements back East in the 1600’s.

There's a lot to digest here. But one issue that pops up is that the school expansion was incredibly ill-advised, and Bp Lopes appears to have been so caught up in the prestige of finally bringing Atonement into the ordinariate that he neglected to consider the impact of the huge debt for an unfinished facility. One wonders if Abp Garcia-Siller's presumed rage at losing the Atonement parish might have been partly for show -- oh, please don't throw me into that briar patch! I would say, though, that the Archdiocese of San Antonio has personnel who would be far better equipped to back out of that situation than Houston.

As time goes on, Abp Garcia-Siller looks better and better in this history, I'd say. He removed Fr Phillips and put in a trusted, experienced outsider to the parish, who lasted only a short time. Fr Lewis, we must assume, is in well over his head -- as, of course, are Fr Perkins and Bp Lopes.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Cardinal Mahony, Mother Angelica, Opus Dei, Fr Phillips. And The Nuns

A visitor comments,
I'm not a Mahony groupie, but I do think he's gotten a bad rap because of the tiff with M. Angelica. Many, many years ago when Mahony issued "Gather Faithfully Together" to bring the liturgical practices in the archdiocese into unity, many people were upset. (Of course, as bishop of the diocese, he is the head liturgist & has the right & responsibility to create liturgical uniformity throughout his diocese.) M. Angelica used one of her Mother Angelica Live broadcasts to encourage people to disobey him. I wasn't happy with most of the "changes" but felt that M. Angelica crossed the line when she encouraged dissent. (I'm not sure Mahony tried to 'shut her down', but he wasn't the only bishop unhappy with her comments.)

I'm sure you think I'm a little bit crazy, but I think the connection between Gomez & EWTN could be investigated & might show OD fingerprints all around it. While Gomez was in San Antonio, Maciel Marcel of the Legionaries of Christ was told to live a life of prayer & penance by Benedict. The Legion was very involved with EWTN & National Catholic Register & I think that OD made a deal with the Legion to take control. (The Legion was probably in dire need of money as many dropped donating to the Legion in the wake of the Maciel scandal.) It's interesting that the nuns who had no connection to the [Pastoral Provision or] Ordinariate were invited to that parish. Why not another parish? Or why not get a teaching order to come & help with the school?

Another reason the Garcia-Siller might have given the nuns their eviction papers is that some strange things started happening in Hanceville. If you read Arroyo's last book about M. Angelica, he alludes to some trouble in the monastery that required Rome's intervention. (By the way, Arroyo is involved with OD as a supernumerary. So all his broadcasts lambasting Francis must have the approval of some higher-ups in OD or his OD spiritual director is turning a blind eye to Arroyo's many uncharitable innuendos on Papal Posse. Robert Royal is also OD-involved but I'm not sure to what degree.)

These are just a few observations brought on by your posting today. It's all so very interesting. Keep us posted!

Just to reiterate, this blog takes no position on Opus Dei, although insofar as it's tangentially involved in issues like Anglicanorum coetibus or the Pastoral Provision, I cover it. (Should some new issue surface regarding Opus Dei that's of general interest, I'll cover that, too.) But I'm drawn to Bp Barron's recent summary of Newman's thought, where he says that we don't make day-to-day decisions based on Thomistic logic, but by a range of impressions. Just about my only real exposure to Opus Dei was watching the late Msgr William Stetson, a pioneering Opus Dei figure, actively bungle the admission of the St Mary of the Angels parish into the North American ordinariate.

By the same token, all I can say about Cardinal Mahony is that one of the most successful parishes in his archdiocese kept its communion rail, established a 24-hour adoration chapel, and installed a new organ during his tenure. It's had a succession of very capable, and I would guess very holy, pastors. It has a reverent OF mass with no dancing around the altar. You don't get figs from thistles, whatever position Mother Angelica may take.

Regarding the Phillips story, my regular correspondent commented,

What a depressing saga. Church leaders battling over power and money, with some sexual misconduct on the side. No good guy here. What edifying point can you make?
I think a major theme that comes out in the Phillips story is that there are con artists in the Church (a problem that goes back to Simon Magus, who saw great opportunities) who operate by duping marks into believing there's a formula for being extra-holy, whether it's liturgy, a separate prelature, or just going into a special group of people-like-us. It seems pretty clear that Fr Phillips was out to enrich himself and his family with one version of that formula. But the controversies of Jesus of Nazareth with the Pharisees provide plenty of evidence that that's not a productive path.

What we see elsewhere in the North American ordinariate suggests that so far, the only mild successes among any parishes involve some version of the Phillips formula, setting up a way for a splinter group that doesn't like its bishop to become extra-holy with chapel veils and home school co-ops, no knowledge of Latin required. Yet if you take Fr Phillips out of his own domain, the place totters on the brink of financial disaster. The same applies to most of the parishes that haven't used the Philips formula.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Fr Phillips And The Nuns

The Our Lady of the Atonement insider continues his account with new information on the order of nuns that at one time lived at the parish. While this is only tangential to the main focus of this blog, Anglicanorum coetibus, it's more pertinent to the Pastoral Provision, and I think it's important to counteract the rosy picture of the Pastoral Provision that's been put out in the now largely defunct Anglo-Catholic blogosphere.

Remember the small house that I spoke about in the first installment? There is a further story connected with this house. There was a young lady at OLOTA who became a nun in Mother Angelica's Franciscan order in Leeds/Hanceville Alabama. Mother Angelica started the worldwide EWTN television network. You may know that your Cardinal Mahony of LA tried to get her shut down, but Pope John Paul ll would have none of it and Mahony was rebuffed.

Well, this young nun was instrumental in getting a contingent of Mother Angelica's nuns sent to San Antonio to start a new foundation. Archbishop Gomez, presently Archbishop of Los Angles, who was Archbishop of San Antonio at the time, welcomed the nuns (about six) and installed them in the house belonging to OLOTA as their convent. Hanceville paid for all of the renovations to the house, including building a chapel for the nuns which is now named St. Joseph house.

The nuns struggled for a time, but were able to make inroads on Catholic radio in San Antonio and finally a large parcel of land in the hill country was donated to them for a monastery. When all of this present Ordinariate trouble started at OLOTA, Archbishop Garcia-Siller was so angry he called the Mother superior of the order in Hanceville, Alabama and ordered the nuns out of the diocese. They were given two days to move out. Garcia-Siller didn't even have the decency to summon the nuns and tell them. He went behind their backs. Our Archbishop is a mean vindictive person. It was terrible; the nuns were in tears.

The name of the nun who previously was a parishioner at OLOTA is Sister Elizabeth Marie of Our Lady of the Atonement (Her official name). When she took her final vows, I placed a picture of her under the statue OLOTA in our church. That was many years ago, I think it is still there. These nuns are now back at the mother house in Hanceville, AL.

I do not know what became of the property that was donated to them. What is interesting here is that the nuns had nothing to do with the Ordinariate. They were Roman Catholic Franciscan Nuns. Only one of the nuns was previously a parishioner at OLOTA and that was the reason Archbishop Gomez let them use S. Joseph House. This house is now occupied by the Parochial Vicar of OLOTA, Fr Moore and his family.

I'v got to say that although I'm in a small minority, I think Cardinal Mahony has had a bad rap. I say this simply because I've become more familiar with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as I've become more Catholic, and in particular, I've gotten to know middle-aged priests who came from the St John's Seminary in Camarillo and rose in their careers under Mahony. If the system then was as corrupt as his critics want to make out, these men would not have been ordained and certainly would not have had productive careers. You don't get figs from thistles.

All I can think is there must be more to the story about Mahony and Mother Angelica. I suspect that if I were to gain the trust of some of the priests in residence at our parish, they might provide a broader perspective, but I would also guess that there are many issues that simply don't reach the laity under any circumstances.

The visitor continues,

OLOTA would not exist today, as we know it, without the unbelievable generosity of the Dolan family. This family owned a very large construction company. In fact Mr Dolan's company built most of OLOTA. The family donated large amounts of money to the parish. In fact, Mrs Dolan was the only person to ever have her own office in the office complex at OLOTA. This office later became Dcn Orr's office.

As a matter of fact not long after the nuns arrived in San Antonio, Mr Dolan took them on his corporate jet to his home back east to meet possible donors for their foundation. When the recent new expansion of the school and grounds was taking place, I noticed that Mr Dolan's company was not given the job.

I asked Fr Phillips about this and he told me that one day Mr Dolan came to his office, opened the door, threw his keys on Fr Phillips's desk, said that he had enough of Fr. Phillips and this place, turned around and left. Fr Phillips said that he did not know what precipitated this outburst. Fr Phillips told me that was the reason for the change in construction companies. I know there must be a lot more to this story, but as of now that's all I know.

UPDATE: Another OLA parishioner says,
The new construction was given to Fr. Phillips’s son to oversee. He was not the general contractor, but had some other role.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Another Atonement Insider On Fr Phillips And Anglicanorum Coetibus -- III

The insider's saga continues with the battle over the parish in early 2017;
Garcia-Siller removed Fr Phillips from the parish, installed a diocesan priest, went to Rome and tried to stop the removal of the parish from the diocese. After all, this is a wealthy parish and I am told the value of the property and the buildings alone are worth something in the neighborhood of thirty million dollars. It appears that Garcia-Siller did not do very well in Rome and his last resort was to appeal to Cardinal Wuerl in Washington, DC.

I have been told that Archbishop Garcia-Siller and Cardinal Wuerl had a very heated exchange that could be heard all over the building. In the end, a cardinal trumps an archbishop. Garcia-Siller lost the battle. Or did he? Only time will tell. The Archbishop may end up with the parish for pennies on the dollar. The parish has had to extend the fifteen year loan to thirty years to try and lower the payment. And the archdiocese still has financial consideration in the parish. It is a mess.

Fr Phillips probably felt that coming over to the ordinariate he would be reinstalled as pastor of OLOTA. This was not to be. When OLOTA was turned over to the ordinariate Fr. Phillips returned. I was there that evening. When Fr Phillips walked into a packed St Anthony Hall there was thunderous applause that lasted for at least five minutes. Bishop Lopes and Fr Perkins greeted Fr Phillips in the front of the auditorium. One of the conditions set forth by Garcia-Siller was that Fr Phillips was not to be pastor. This apparently was agreed to by all concerned.

Enter Fr Lewis. Poor man! He had a nice small parish that apparently loved him. He had his family and his parents who are aged and sickly back east. I feel each and every night he must go to bed thinking what did I do? If only I could turn back the clock. I think the same thing for Bishop Lopes and how he thought he was getting a money producing jewel until the financial shenanigans of Fr Phillips started to unravel. What he has is a parish deep in debt with uncompleted construction, a school with a diminishing student body and a lot of unhappy parishioners.

One has to remember that OLOTA population has a few converts, but most of the congregation is made up of cradle Catholics who were looking for a parish that had a reverent mass with good sermons, good music and was not a party church. Most of the Catholic churches in the San Antonio area are not very good, my opinion. In the beginning Fr. Phillips needed money and he accommodated everybody, hence the Latin Mass. The Masses at OLOTA were so reverently done that it was not unusual to see priests, nuns and seminarians from other parishes in attendance.

I asked the visitor what the attendance at the Sunday evening mass has been since the Latin mass was canceled a few weeks ago. He replied,
I have learned from a reliable source that the Mass attendance at OLOTA for the 6 PM Sunday mass (Previously the Latin mass) is down to about half of what it was. [The visitor estimated to me previously that the Latin attendance was in the 350-400 range each Sunday.] My source told me that there are some new faces at this mass, which says that even more of the folks that normally attended the Latin Mass have left. One would assume that collections are down as well.
I think this raises yet again the issue of whether the ordinariate's draw consists in some very important measure of conservative cradle Catholics who would not be eligible for "membership" in the ordinariate. And this isn't just an academic question: Fr Phillips was in fact an effective fundraiser, and insofar as this added to the income and assets of the archdiocese, the successive archbishops could look the other way over certain irregularities.

Once the ordinariate threatened to take the parish tithe and real estate assets away from the archdiocese, things changed. But by the same token, the "missions" in Murreita, CA and The Woodlands, TX (or Montgomery, if one chooses to be politically correct) threaten to poach cradle Catholics and siphon away potential donations from their respective dioceses. I would guess that the respective bishop and archbishop are currently biding their time to see how the winds blow at the CDF, given the response Abp Garcia-Siller had.

But I think the outcome in San Antonio has been to destroy a good part of the parish's value to either prelature as an ongoing asset, either for anyone's spiritual benefit or as an ongoing source of income. The visitor is probably correct that at some point, the parish will simply revert to the archdiocese for pennies on the dollar and be disposed of for its real estate value. I haven't checked to see if there's a Medieval Times restaurant franchise in San Antonio.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Another Atonement Insider On Fr Phillips And Anglicanorum Coetibus -- I

As we come closer to the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus, it's very useful to develop all the information we can on the leadup to its implementation and, not incidentally, the trail of destruction it's left in its wake. Some time ago, we had input from an insider at Our Lady of the Atonement who gave one perspective on Fr Phillips's stewardship there and the reasons that led him to keep the parish out of the North American ordinariate until 2017.

More recently, I've had extensive correspondence with a second insider who confirms aspects of the first account, but he adds perspective from someone who saw the parish from a different point of view, including that of the several hundred parishioners who attended the Sunday evening OF Latin mass almost exclusively. For this substantial group, of course, "Anglican Use" was of very little meaning. This visitor's account is quite detailed, and I'll present it in posts over several days, with my own observations interspersed.

I will start out by saying I was not one of the original parishioners at OLOTA, so I do not have knowledge of some of the early events that took place at that time. I will try to give an overview of the facts as I know them. I do know that when OLOTA first started, with about 17 people, a moderate sized house was purchased for Fr. Phillips and his large family. Again, this was before I arrived at the parish so I don't know all of the details, but the house was owned by the parish, not Fr. Phillips. Not long after this, a small church and a school were built.

As I understand it, some Franciscan nuns were brought in to teach at the school. This did not work out well. The nuns had their own idea about the school and Fr. Phillips had his idea. A battle ensued that brought in the Archbishop of the diocese to negotiate a settlement. Fr. Phillips won and the nuns left. The interesting thing here is that one of the nuns left the Franciscan order, joined a new order and is to this day still at OLOTA.

This whole affair created bad blood between Fr. Phillips and Archbishop Flores. To my knowledge the Archbishop never came back to OLOTA. When Fr. Phillips needed a bishop for any occasion, such as confirmations, he called on an older retired bishop to come out and officiate.

Because of his falling out with the diocese, Fr. Phillips became somewhat nervous about his precarious position at OLOTA. He once said to me that he wanted his own house, one not owned by the parish, to protect his family in case something happened. An aside here is that sometime after he bought this larger home, he installed a pool. When asked by a parishioner if this luxury was necessary, he responded that he never took a vow of poverty.

Interestingly, we see this tendency echoed in the priests at Our Lady of Walsingham, who live in million-dollar McMansions. (It would be worth investigating how Fr Perkins is housed as well.) The visitor also commented,
All of Fr. Phillips's family members and their spouses with the possible exception of his elder daughter were paid employees of OLOTA in different capacities. I think that the new regime has put an end to this. To my knowledge, none of Fr. Phillips's family members are still employed by the parish.[But see below]
This goes to the oh-by-the way opportunism and self-aggrandizement that seems to be so common among ordinariate priests. It seems as though both the ordinaries Houston has had so far would suggest this is not a bug but a feature. The visitor goes on,
Now on to the Ordinariate. As is well known, JPll and B16 were favorable to the whole Pastoral provision/Ordinariate idea. As this was progressing to become a reality, Fr. Phillips started a campaign to sign up the parishioners at OLOTA. He wanted big numbers, so he strongly asked that we all sign up. Most did. In the interim Fr. Phillips was invited to a bishops conference in, I think, Washington, DC. Many of us felt that Fr. Phillips was invited to this conference to be made head of the new ordinariate.

Fr. Phillips told me that one day when the conference was in session a cart was rolled out with a birthday cake on it. The cart was placed in front of Fr. Phillips and the whole assembly got up and sang happy birthday to him. I am sure, with this display, he must have felt that he was on the inside track. Unfortunately the ordinariate announcement did not materialize at that conference. He came home full of joy. It would only be a matter of time until the announcement was made.

One day in conversation with Fr. Phillips, I asked who he thought were possible candidates to be head of the upcoming ordinariate. He thought he was the rightful choice because of all he had done to bring it about. I mentioned Msgr Stetson because he was a Roman Priest who could be elevated to the rank of bishop. A married man cannot be a bishop. He was also the liaison between the Pastoral Provision and Cardinal Law who, as I understand it, was put in charge of overseeing the ordinariate by the Vatican. [see below]

I should not have mentioned Msgr Stetson's name as this precipitated a volley of expletives unbecoming a priest. Fr. Phillips did not like Msgr Stetson, but had to tolerate him because of Cardinal Law. Fr. Phillips went on to say that there are four ranks of Monsignor and the highest rank was equal to a bishop.

This confirms the earlier insider's account that Fr Phillips and Msgr Stetson were on very bad terms. What we do know in hindsight is that Msgr Steenson had been working with Cardinal Law since at least 1993 to draft what went to Cardinal Ratzinger as a proposal for Anglicanorum coetibus. Had this been implemented under John Paul, it appears that TEC Bp Clarence Pope would have become ordinary, with Steenson likely vicar general and heir presumptive. Given the more than 15-year delay, Bp Pope's declining health made Steenson the clear choice once Steenson became an Episcopalian bishop himself.

This was kept a deep dark secret, since Steenson would likely never have been voted a TEC bishop in 2004 had the plans with Law and Ratzinger come to light prematurely. In fact, the actual reason for Steenson's 2007 resignation as TEC Bishop of the Rio Grande and journey to Rome under Law's auspice never was made clear even after Steenson's designation as ordinary in 2012.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl was made delegate for implementing Anglicanorum coetibus when it was promulgated in late 2009. Wuerl in turn made Fr R Scott Hurd his day-to-day designate. Hurd, a married Anglican Use priest, continued as Steenson's first vicar general. In the spirit of mutual self-promotion and self-aggrandizement we see throughout this history, he seems to have favored a clique of young graduates from the elite Nashotah House Episcopal seminary in recommending ordinations for Episcopalian and Anglican candidates.

Msgr Stetson's position in the implementation is something of a puzzle. Fr Phillips saw him as a prime candidate for ordinary, and it's true that he had a strong link to Cardinal Law since they were both at Adams House in Harvard together in the late 1940s. However, Stetson was 80 and already retired from Opus Dei. He was given the task of supervising the entry of the St Mary of the Angels parish in Hollywood, CA into the ordinariate, since he had moved to Los Angeles.

But between Stetson himself, Hurd, Steenson, and Steenson's legal adviser, Margaret Chalmers, the project of bringing that parish into the ordinariate was bungled disastrously over a five-month period that culminated with parish dissidents starting a seven-year round of litigation that is still not over. We should not neglect this chapter in recognizing the trail of destruction Anglicanorum coetibus is leaving in its wake.

The money in the blogosphere as of 2011 was on either Fr Phillips or David Moyer to become ordinary. Moyer, a "continuing" bishop, in my view might have been the best choice among all the potential candidates. He had what I think was a realistic vision of what the ordinariate could actually become, a sense of the risks in what it quite possibly would not, and a sense of personnel and personalities, which I don't believe any other candidate had. But Steenson in hindsight was the only reasonable choice, while if nothing else, Moyer's hidden health issues would quickly have killed him if he'd gone to Houston.

I'll continue with the visitor's account tomorrow.

UPDATE: The first insider who contributed to earlier insights comments, regarding the employment of Fr Phillips's family at the parish:

This account is all correct with the exception of Fr. Phillips's eldest daughter, named Christian, was employed by the parish, in the very early days of the school, as a librarian/aide.

With the exception of his second eldest daughter, all five of his children have worked at the parish in the past - and her husband was a custodian for a time.

His only son, Nathan, had an extremely lucrative contractual relationship with the parish, during the construction of the most recent buildings ($millions spent but not completed), and he still receives payment for services rendered, from a facilities maintenance point of view.

It has been an extremely challenging endeavor for Fr. Lewis to extricate this family from the cash flow of the parish.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Why Isn't This Dog Barking?

I acknowledge I'm somewhere well below amateur level at reading Vatican tea leaves, but the leading English-speaking interpreter of St John Henry Newman is now Bp Barron. He has two YouTubes out in the past week on this subject:




But then he left Rome for the UK, where he's so far produced further episodes at the graves of C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, and Winston Churchill. My goodness, what a wonderful opportunity to present Anglicanorum coetibus and the precious treasures of the Anglican spiritual patrimony to the English-speaking world, huh? Well, so far, it looks as though that task has still been left to Mrs Gyapong and the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society.

Perhaps we'll soon see Mrs Gyapong herself on YouTube correcting this enormous oversight. But then, er, where's Bp Steven Lopes? He's been in Rome, and there's a tour with some ordinariate members there as well for the canonization, but as far as I can see, he's had no public presence and has made no public statements. In fact, I would guess that, unlike Bp Barron, Bp Lopes has no particular knowledge of Newman and has no meaningful observation to make.

And his most favored priests are corrupt also-rans living with wives and families in million-dollar McMansions.

Somehow I can't imagine this has escaped the attention of the USCCB, which seems to have decided that Bp Barron, a telegenic masculine solid moderate, is the best public face for AmChurch, with Bp Lopes apparently kept off in some sort of closet somewhere. I suspect he knows the best course is to stay out of the public eye and quietly limit the ad orientem and Latinizing camp to his little flock.

Friday, October 18, 2019

How Things Changed For The Big Pastoral Provision Parishes After 2012

In the past several days I've heard from two visitors who were respectively attending Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston and Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio for a period of years before the erection of the North American ordinariate in 2012. Our Lady of the Atonement delayed its entry until 2017. A reason I was given by an insider was that in 2012, Msgr Steenson rebuked Fr Phillips for "arrogance" in buying a house next to the parish property, not anticipating that Steenson could reassign him at any time. On reflection, though, a pastor who by 2012 was of 30 years standing at the parish did in fact have a reasonable expectation of stability, so this would (if true) have been a ham-handedly unnecessary gesture by Steenson, which kept OLA out of the ordinariate for another five years.

But Anglicanorum coetibus added a puzzling piece of unnecessary complexity to its implementation, the concept of "membership" that appears in Article 5 of the Complementary Norms. For instance,

Those who have received all of the Sacraments of Initiation outside the Ordinariate are not ordinarily eligible for membership, unless they are members of a family belonging to the Ordinariate. . . . may be admitted to membership in the Ordinariate. . . . may be admitted to membership. . .
This adds a factor that doesn't occur in diocesan Catholic parishes, where the faithful are "registered". This may entitle them to certain sacraments like marriage that would not be available if they weren't registered. But in Anglican denominations, being a "member" carries additional canonical and legal implications that don't occur in Catholic parishes, such as the eligibility to vote in parish elections or serve on the vestry. Why the CDF has elected to Protestantize the ordinariates in this way is a puzzle, but it has had implications in particular for the big Texas Pastoral Provision parishes that went into the North American ordinariate, a substantial part of its population.

So let's start with Our Lady of the Atonement. Following the removal of Fr Phillips as pastor by Abp Garcia-Siller at the start of 2017, the parish went into the ordinariate at the order of the CDF. This was plainly disruptive, no matter the merits of Fr Phillips's removal. But an additional factor was whether the existing parishioners who were "registered" in the diocesan Atonement parish would then become "members" of the ordinariate. A deal was offered by which all existing parishioners would be grandfathered in as "members", a gesture that plainly indicated their status would change in some important but unspecified way.

I ran into a 2017 post here that unintentionally gives an idea of the impact of this move. I quoted a visitor who gave an informed estimate of how many should have come into the ordinariate as a result:

Ordinariate population figures for Chair of St. Peter were from the Annuario Pontificum book from 2015 (so numbers from 2014) and listed 6,000 members. Assuming 1,500 or so new members via OLA’s entrance, the total population is probably still less than 8,000. . .
We still don't know how many "members" came into the ordinriate from Our Lady of the Atonement in 2017, but it appears that the number was so much lower than the 1,500 estimated here as to be profoundly sobering. Add to that the impact of the recent discontinuance of the Latin mass there on Sunday evenings. A visitor who was impacted reports,
Three weeks ago, with a three week notice, the Latin Mass was ended at our parish. The parish that I attended for 23 years no longer has the Latin Mass. I have moved on to another parish that has the Traditional Latin Mass. . . . . For the life of me I can't see how this makes any sense. OLOTA is financially hurting so one would think Bp.Lopes and Fr. Lewis would at least look at the lost revenue and now the loss of parishioners. The Latin Mass was attended each week by at least 350 to 400 parishioners.
The problem I see is that, whatever the merits or otherwise of Fr Phillips, he had established a parish that in a diocesan context successfully served a range of liturgically conservative Catholics. They didn't have to show an Ausweis to prove their eligibility for whatever version of worship they preferred there, but now the ones who attended under a set of expectations set up in the archdiocese have officially been thrown overboard by the ordinariate. By the visitor's account, which seems reasonable, there may have been hundreds who attended OLA specifically for its Latin mass and have now had to leave.

How is this a good thing? Since Houston has never released statistics, we'll never know for sure.

Another visitor recounted her experience at Our Lady of Walsingham:

I am a cradle Catholic who has been a parishioner at OLW since 2005. I started attending Mass here because at the time, it was the only Catholic church in town that had decent choral music. I am a singer who wanted to sing 16th Century polyphony in a Catholic church that valued reverence and beauty, joined the choir, and never looked back. I was married, and my children were baptized and have received other sacraments of initiation at OLW. . . . . I don't know much about other ordinariate communities. I will say that over the past few years our church has mainly attracted conservative Catholics, and not just white ones, who want a faithful community that values reverent masses. There has recently been a big inflow from Holy Rosary, a Houston archdiocesan church that has fallen apart because the Southern Dominican order that runs it brought in pastors who liberalized the Mass and fired a much-loved, orthodox DRE.
I checked the web, and as far as I can see, Holy Rosary continues to be an outwardly successful parish that in fact seems to have better architecture than OLW, a music program, and a Latin OF mass. I probed the visitor a little farther, and she responded that her reasons for making the move were probably more in the direction of finding better religious education for her children. I reflected on this, and it occurred to me that in a post-Conciliar world, it's completely licit for her to drive wherever she pleases to attend whatever parish suits her and her family's needs, and in a pre-2012 world, that would have included Our Lady of Walsingham.

But post-2012, a cradle Catholic named Schultz or Bonelli would have to go onto Ancestry.com to discover an Episcopalian great aunt someplace to qualify as a "member" at Our Lady of Walsingham. Or alternatively, she could attend as a non-"member" but get her children confirmed there, making them in effect anchor babies but assuring her own "membership" in the ordinariate.

I wonder -- when you come through customs at the airport, there's a line for citizens and one for non-citizens. Is there a separate line for ordinariate members at the pearly gates?

There's another problem, which is that when the two big parishes were in archdioceses, they were under supervision by building departments, they were subject to audits by experienced staff, they were subject to safe environment policies and Virtus requirements, and they had leadership from experienced bishops who'd risen through the US hierarchy. This is not the case here -- I can't imagine a US diocese retaining a priest who'd turned out to be a gay activist with prior aliases. Now, they basically have Fr Perkins making excuses for what's no longer done there.

Thursday, October 17, 2019

More Comments From Visitors On The Presentation Group

The question of the newly formed Presentation group in The Woodlands, TX has spurred unusual interest from several visitors, and the issues it raises actually relate to questions that might be addressed as we approach the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus. So I want to take some extra time to go over some visitor comments in the particular context of the 2009 apostolic constitution and its complementary norms, as well as in the implementation as it's shaken out.

The constitution itself makes clear that

§4 The Ordinariate is composed of lay faithful, clerics and members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, originally belonging to the Anglican Communion and now in full communion with the Catholic Church, or those who receive the Sacraments of Initiation within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate.
Regarding liturgy,
. . . the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared. (Section III)
In practice, it seems to me that there's confusion about this mission, especially as it relates to diocesan parishes. As my regular correspondent puts it,
[P]eople drive, sometimes a long way, to get what they want in a parish. And the Ordinariate seems to be just another choice, offering the taste and tone some people associate with Anglicanism, preserving “Roman” customs from the heyday of the Anglo-Catholic revival, featuring the English choral tradition, whatever. The point is that it has nothing to do with evangelism and offers no template for bringing, say, Presbyterians into the Church, because the people who are choosing to attend Ordinariate communities are overwhelmingly already Catholic, mostly lifelong. No formerly Anglican congregation has joined the OCSP since March, 2015; no former clergyman has even entered with a “gathered” group of converts since 2016.
To that I would add that the customs "from the heyday of the Anglo-Catholic revival" are basically what individual ordinariate groups say they are, but most are too poor to afford the opulent church decoration or inspiring music that was a feature of Episcopalianism among US wealthy elites in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

This would include some of the newest and apparently most popular, such as Holy Martyrs, Murrieta, CA, and Church of the Presentation, The Woodlands, TX. These groups operate in highly provisional venues without the professional music resources that can be found even in successful diocesan Catholic parishes. So the draw must be something else, and it's worth investigating that.

A visitor remarks,

I am not sure of the geographic boundaries of what is considered "The Woodlands" but Houston development is no doubt building northward from the City and expanding out with new developments.

A google maps search shows, it takes about 20 minutes to get from the Presentation Church's new property to another Catholic Church. To my eye, it is not in "Woodlands" anymore but in a developing area called Montgomery, Texas. It also looks like there is a large suburban area with no Catholic Church to the Northeast. Perhaps the location isn't bad.

The problem is -- and this is being fuzzed over in this kind of discussion -- whether development is expanding in a particular area (as it is in Murrieta, CA as well), it's the diocesan bishop's responsibility to address this problem, especially as in both areas, there are likely to be Latin, Filipino, Vietnamese, and other populations for whom Anglican traditions are unfamiliar, but who are entitled to a Catholic mass that meets their needs. If x number of Anglicans in a new area will be well served by an ordinariate parish, that doesn't exempt the diocesan bishop from carrying on with his own efforts to provide for his faithful.

The visitor continues,

Do Ordinariate Communities seem to do better in the Suburbs, or in the City Center? The one I have visited several times has an off hour mass in a dangerous area, in a beautiful old Church, but an enthusiastic group that drives in from all over the region.

It is hard to know if this approach (like what most Latin Mass Churches are doing) is better than starting in a suburban area where white Catholic and Episcopal/Methodist types reside.

These are good questions, but a telling point is that if you were to ask them of Bp Lopes or Fr Perkins, you would get nothing but some hemming and hawing, because there's simply not enough data to answer them effectively. Ordinariate parishes and groups turn out to be small and largely unstable. A significant number of full parishes are struggling to maintain the antiquated properties that have been handed on to them by dioceses, whether they're in center-city (like Scranton, PA) or suburban (like Bridgeport, PA and Fort Washington, MD) areas. Even one of the most solid, Our Lady of the Atonement, San Antonio, is facing the consequences of financial mismanagement.

The actuality is that there's no plan, no formula, no vision, and no effective leadership for evengelizing Anglicans in the North American ordinariate. Mild successes are seized on opportunistically. In Southern California, of four groups-in-formation, three are stagnant and even failing, even though they're all under the leadership of one priest and served by supply priests familiar with all of them. The one in Murrieta is a partial success, although it does not offer the traditional "Anglican" opulence or inspiring music.

Insofar as the Presentation group behaves in a similar way, we'll have to seek out an explanation there, too. The visitor offers some possible insight:

Do you know of Taylor Marshall? I alluded before to those I call the "Latinizers". These people are often followers of Dr. Taylor Marshall, a former Episcopal Priest who lives in Dallas. Marshall is a proponent of the Traditional Latin Mass, and has recently become among the brimary belligerents in the Catholic liturgical Wars.

I think many Conservative Catholics find the Ordinariate to be a comfortable place to live, as they have a similar bunker mentality to the conservative Anglo-Catholics, who were victimized by the Bishopa of The Episcopal Church.

I agree on Taylor Marshall, a johnny-come-lately "Thomist" and self-promoter who in fact has kept his distance from Anglicanorum coetibus (it would dilute his personal brand). But Anglo-Catholics in The Episcopal Church are actually quite comfortable -- recognize that since the 1840s and the start of the movement, "Anglo-Catholic" has always been a polite way of saying gay. Gays are an established interest group to whom the elites in TEC are happy to cater -- their parishes make money. Those who left TEC over the past 40 years are not largely Anglo-Catholic. They do have bunker mentalities.

I think we may be coming closer to one aspect of the problem at Presentation, which I'll continue to address tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

A Visitor Reacts To The Presentation Startup

A visitor sent me an e-mail that takes me on additional trains of thought.
I find it irritating that these clusters of ordinariate groups exist in places like Texas, when there isn't a single ordinariate Parish in Ohio, Michigan, or Western Pennsylvania. I can understand why there are clusters in a few places, but not Texas.
I've wondered the same thing, but naturally, the questions extend beyond Texas, because the ordinariate has not found takers in neighboring states like Oklahoma, Louisiana, or Arkansas, and hasn't been strong elsewhere in the Bible Belt. That would include Virginia, West Virginia, and Mississippi. So a Bible Belt explanation for strength in Texas doesn't seem to fit. The visitor goes on,
As for the Woodlands, it is one of the most wealthy areas in America. Perhaps it is fiscally wise to put up churches in wealthy places, where the community (or a few wealthy donors) can support the mission. This approach works well for orders like the Dominicans.

It seems to me, the Ordinariate is a great idea. But, rather than focus squarely on building programs to re-evangelize and bring Protestants in, it is focused on something else. And it would be nice to see a parish pop up some place where there isn't already another in town.

From what I can see, there are actually three Catholic parishes in Woodlands, TX, leaving the Presentation group aside, which doesn't yet come up on searches. These include St Anthony of Padua, Sts Simon and Jude, and something called the St Peter's New Catholic Church Rectory. Someone knowledgeable may be able to explain what these parishes are like.

There are two Episcopal parishes in The Woodlands, Trinity Episcopal and St Isidore, plus an ACNA parish, HopePointe Anglican. Somehow I doubt there'll be a membership drop at any of these stemming from the Presentation startup.

But even if the three existing Catholic parishes were all happy-clappy, flip-flops and halter-tops, Dan Schuette guitar masses, I'm not sure what the draw would be at Presentation, for whom a decent digital organ would be in the $20-50,000 range, and as best as can be determined so far from social media, their first venue outside the priest's front parlor will be a prefab metal barn. Couldn't some of the affluent people behind Presentation make pledges that would get them noticed at an established parish and make it onto the parish council or liturgy committee?

I do find that pledges at a certain level can get people noticed. By the same token, a serious offer of money that isn't taken seriously is a sign to move on, but let's face it, the money should go to something besides a floor for the new barn. The visitor continues,

Can you imagine being Bishop Lopes? He could be a Cardinal, if he gets this together. But it threatens to become a failure for him. His office isn't responsive and I am not sure what to think of him. I have spoken to many Episcopal priests who have the same experience.
I'm leaving out details for everyone's protection, but the visitor speaks of an Episcopal priest with solid credentials who would bring a parish with him, but who has apparently found Houston unresponsive. It's worth noting that the original intent of Anglicanorum coetibus was for existing parishes to come in with their clergy and, ideally, their property, something that hasn't happened for several years. One would think Houston would respond actively to a hot prospect, but apparently it doesn't, although my experience of Fr Perkins is that the man is basically supine. But that's the guy Bp Lopes wants.

So I came away from the visitor's e-mail with two questions worthy of reflection: certainly there are prosperous communities all over North America that have hosted active Anglo-Catholic leaning Episcopalian parishes,for which an enhanced liturgy joined with authentic Catholicism might prove appealing. I grew up in several affluent snob towns, Cranbury and Chatham, NJ, and Bethesda, MD, where if there were a will, there could be a way.

Is there such a total lack of interest, or are the wrong people running the show in Houston? I'd be interested to know if other Anglican or Episcopalian clergy have experienced unresponsiveness there.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Organs As An Ordinariate Milestone

Looking at the new Presentation, TX group and its oddly placed priorities, my regular correspondent notes,
Sixteen OCSP communities own their own church. These range from substantial, if by no means first-rate, buildings newly built under the auspices of the local Catholic diocese (three Texas parishes), to whatever portion of the property on 5530 Honea Egypt Rd, Montgomery, TX is being used as a chapel.
And this brought me to the bait-and-switch of the Presentation and other proposals, even at the heart of the Anglicanorum coetibus project as it's shaken out, that disaffected Anglicans can get an "Episcopalian" liturgical experience they wish they had in TEC.

So, even if they don't get a St Thomas Fifth Avenue for a building, they still get the glories of the 1940 Hymnal along with faux BCP, right? I mean, with a significant organ pealing the refrain of "Rejoice Ye Pure In Heart"?


In fact, of the 16 North American ordinariate communities that have their own buildings, it isn't completely clear how many have a real organ. Naturally, without a permanent building, the only chance for an organ is to get access to the one in the main nave of a Catholic parish at a convenient mass time, but this also means paying an organist.

My regular correspondent sent me a link to the apparent situation at St John the Baptist Bridgeport, PA as of May 2018:

I should note that there is also another capital expense on the horizon: the organ. The pipe organ which was here when we arrived is small and inadequate for our musical needs. We are using an electronic instrument, on loan from Kevin Chun, while we develop plans for a suitable replacement. This has proven more complicated than anticipated, and it is not clear at this point what the best solution will be. There are technical issues to be resolved, including the location for the pipes. In order to maintain our already excellent music program, we will need an instrument of reasonable size and excellent tonal quality. However we resolve the technical issues, this will be a significant expense. I’m extremely grateful to a couple of parishioners who have already offered (at their own initiative) to contribute to the costs when the time comes.
Here is a YouTube that may give a hint about the current state of their excellent music program, as well as the size of the group that is expected to finance a new organ. (I count about two dozen in the pews.)

One thing that puzzles me is the reference in the report to the need to find a "location for the pipes". Would not the products from companies like Walker Technical, Hauptwerk, or Rodgers Instruments be much more suited to the purpose?

It sounds as though even among the ordinariate communities that could conceivably feature an organ in their worship, there's little synergy or imagination, but if resources are as limited as they must be given the attendance we see in Bridgeport, even installing a modern combination organ of the sort that's accessible to even modest Protestant congregations is out of the question.

I would be interested to hear from informed people about what organs and music programs are in place at ordinariate communities.

Monday, October 14, 2019

The Parish Liturgy Committee

I learned something new at mass yesterday -- our pastor announced in the bulletin that, following input and deliberation by the liturgy committee, the parish would change the communion wine from red to white, as the pastor put it, to make the work of the "saints who wash the linens" easier. I simply wasn't aware up to this point that there was such a thing as a parish liturgy committee. But I did a web search and discovered many guideline documents for parish liturgy committees in many US Catholic dioceses. Here's the one for the Los Angeles archdiocese.

Since the start of last month, when the parish often introduces changes to the liturgy for the upcoming year, my wife and I have commented that the parish has actually been becoming more "Episcopalian" (in a good way). It has always had quite a roster of professional -- I would even say operatic -- quality cantors, which isn't surprising in an area with many record producers and film studios. But they've added what I've begun to call "Episcopalian" cantors, middle-aged men with conservative gray haircuts and metal-rimmed glasses who are (like all the cantors) vested in cassock and surplice.

This year, they've changed the cantor's welcome statement at the start of the mass to begin, "Peace be with you." The turn-off-cell-phones reminder now goes something like, "Please take this opportunity to turn off all cell phones and noisemaking devices to respect the reverence of our liturgy and prayer." The tone carries a high seriousness that in some ways I always wished for in my Episcopalian parishes but never quite had.

The cantors now cross over to the pulpit to lead the responses to the psalm. With the quality of the choir, organ, and orchestra that perform at mass every Sunday, I keep muttering to my wife at various points that our parish outdoes every Episcopalian service we've ever been to, and I would bet a great many we haven't. And it's OF, versus populum.

But now I realize this comes from something called the parish liturgy committee. The problem I see with ordinariate projects like the newly established Presentation group in Woodlands, TX is that they're explicitly saying they're going to start new "to build a place worthy of the mysteries with which we’ve been entrusted", as though this isn't the purpose of every parish and has never been done before.

Given the underlying seething attitude we seem to find among ordinariate types, the implication is that this has been neglected, at least in Montgomery County, and not only that, the bishop hasn't addressed it and will never do so, so we need a whole new prelature to set things right. Yeah, we've got trouble.


Have any of these people thought about working through the liturgy committee in existing parishes? Wouldn't a proportionate increase in pledge from people who want improvements in liturgy go much farther in an existing building than in a startup? But in Woodlands, the money's going to an expensive new house for a married priest and his family -- but that's just Phase I, dei gratia, it's here! The good liturgy, well, that's Phase II, but it'll be here! just be patient!

Sunday, October 13, 2019

More Big Plans In Woodlands, TX!

Browsing farther on the web site of the Presentation group in Woodlands, TX, I found a page on their plans. Just so someone in Houston doesn't get an idea of taking the page down once I link it here, I'm including a page image below. Click on the image for a larger view.
Where to start? As we saw yesterday on the About Us page, there is no mention of Anglicanorum coetibus, Anglicans, or anything called an ordinariate. Instead,
The heart of every Catholic parish is the church itself. It is a place awesome beyond compare, the very dwelling place of God and the gate of heaven on earth. We are, therefore, going to build a church and campus that reflects, reinforces, and teaches these realities.
I've got to assume the sketch of a gothic style church on the page is just clip art, as farther down, actual planning of the church itself is left to Phase II in the indefinite future. Normal truth in advertising would, of course, require that some sort of statement be made that would reflect this. And the building depicted in the sketch would probably cost more than the Our Lady of Walsingham cathedral itself, since that has a definite air of cheapness about it. Compare the Episcopalian Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York:
With the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston:
The proposal that's being made in Woodlands, TX is so unrealistic that I think it verges on fraud. Yet I have a sense that what's being sold with the North American ordinariate is that you can go to someone's front parlor, the basement chapel, a school auditorium, or even a dilapidated diocesan building, and if you squint, you'll see St Thomas Fifth Avenue or even St Thomas Hollywood -- and if the wind is right, you'll hear the strains of a magnificent Aeolian Skinner organ. I'm just not sure if this is healthy.

There's another issue that's just as important, which is that Houston simply doesn't have the staff resources to supervise a project like this. The two church building projects that were built new under the Pastoral Provision, Walsingham and Our Lady of the Atonement, were supervised by dioceses that had building departments and other staff who could make sure the project was done properly. This would certainly include approved consulting firms that could ensure fundraising was properly handled and that the area population justified projects of such a size.

And it's worth pointing out that Our Lady of the Atonement currently faces financial disaster, paying for school expansion that was never justified and with a shrinking parish. And in fact, this goes to another question, Houston's apparent reliance on the Phillips model of church expansion, when Houston is simultaneously forcing Fr Phillips into the distant background himself.

What's taking place is a continuing attempt to poach diocesan Catholics with conservative liturgy, which was justifiable when Our Lady of the Atonement was a diocesan parish. But now diocesan Catholics are being told that a new "Catholic church" is going create "a place worthy of the mysteries with which we’ve been entrusted", not like St Whoosis that has Mexicans and Filipinos and such riff-raff. But the proposal in Woodlands conceals that they and their sacrificial giving are not going to their bishop or diocese. Indeed, if the smarter ones see this, they're being told with a wink and a nudge that it's OK to bypass their bishop.

My regular correspondent notes,

Somebody really wants a Catholic alternative in The Woodlands, TX. Original spin was that these are current OLW parishioners but cannot see any OCSP benefit in splitting their most successful parish unless it would enable them to poach Catholics in the new location.
I think the problem we overwhelmingly see is that even the Phillips "beauty of holiness" poaching model works only mildly well when it works at all, with the Holy Martyrs Murrieta parish still stuck with a brutalist interior with HVAC ducts showing on the ceiling in a rented former health club. Other full parishes like Our Lady of the Atonement and St Luke's are clearly shrinking, while yet others are barely holding on. As they say about insanity, it's trying to do the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Woodlands, TX Group Buys A Big Expensive Rectory

My regular correspondent sent me this update:
As you can see here this start-up will officially start celebrating in its new location this Sunday, having raised considerably more than the initial $160,000 required to purchase a house and property in the area.
UPDATE: Although the link to the real estate listing in my correspondent's note was up when I checked before posting this morning, I'm told it's since been taken down. A photo of this extravagant rectory, taken from a screen shot of the listing in July, is still at the July post in the link below. Good to know Houston reads this blog!

I first covered this story in July under the title, "Who Are They Trying To Kid?". To recap, this is a 3,000 square foot house on ten acres, on the market at $895,000, that will be used as a rectory, and we can only assume the front parlor will be the location for Sunday mass. It's worth repeating my correspondent's comment from that post:

Fr Fletcher doesn't have a diocesan day job; he's a Parochial Vicar of Our Lady of Walsingham, which given its membership (ASA 1000+) and mass schedule (Saturday Vigil and four Sunday masses, plus daily mass) needs more than one priest, I assume. Initially there were three priests-in-residence besides the Pastor, now Dean, but they seem to have faded out of the picture. Presumably someone put up significant cash for this Woodlands spin-off, which wasn't necessarily the Ordinariate's first priority.
Houston issues no statistics on this or any other community, but the assumption we might reasonably make is that a group of two dozen or so will come up with a monthly payment well into four figures from its weekly pledges. Well, I guess.

This simply confirms my continuing impression that some people in the ordinariate travel first class, others in coach, and it would seem there's a definite club within a club. (If you think about it, the Presentation Woodlands group has a priest present and owns its facility. Maybe it's not quite up to 30 families yet, but it's not all that far from becoming a full parish, wouldn't you say?)

There's another issue here, too. Let's look at the announcement in the link above:

Click here to learn more and join in if you'd like to:
  • be a part of our growing community
  • help start a new Catholic parish in Montgomery County
  • have a place to participate in the sacraments
  • or just find out more about what it means to be Catholic.
Nothing about Anglicans at all. It says, "We are a Roman Catholic community", trading on the diocesan Catholic brand, but anyone who gets involved isn't going to get diocesan Catholic. No mention of the precious treasures, no mention of the ordinariate. No music, no adoration, no Bible study, no daily mass, as far as I can see.

Some of the clergy ride in first, some in second, but it looks as if the laity ride in the baggage compartment with the pets.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Canon Albert DuBois: Famous For Being Well-Known?

Fr Barker's latest account brings up Canon Albert J duBois yet again as a leader of the movement in which a small group of Episcopalian parishes seceded from the denomination in 1977. Belatedly, though this saga has had plenty of other obscure figures to research, I decided to find more complete information on duBois, his career, and his positions. Fr Barker says,
From the beginning at St. Mary’s he became involved with the American Church Union (ACU) which was under the direction of its famous Executive Director Rev. Canon Albert Julius DuBois, affectionately known as “Mr. Catholic” in the Episcopal Church.
The puzzling thing is how very little comes up in web searches about the famous Mr Catholic, Canon duBois, prior to the TEC 1976 General Convention. There's no Wikipedia entry, although there's one for Barker's other mentor, Edward Crowther, even though Crowther himself is largely forgotten. The fullest discussion of his career is in a TEC press release issued at the time of his death, which probably came from an ally, possibly Barker:
Long Beach, Calif. -- The Rev. Canon Albert Julius duBois, who served as Executive Director of the American Church Union from 1950 until he retired in 1974, died at the Memorial Hospital Medical Center here on June 6 after a long illness.

Canon duBois, who was well known throughout the entire Anglican Communion as well as the Episcopal Church, served as the editor of the American Church News during the 24 years he headed the Church Union, an organization which endeavors to maintain the catholic and apostolic heritage of Anglicanism. In 1973 he was named Honorary President for Life of the Church Union.

For three years following his retirement in 1974, he served as professor of liturgies and church history at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Kentucky at Lexington. In 1975 he became national coordinator of Episcopalians United and edited its newspaper. In 1977 he founded Anglicans United and became its first president and editor of its newspaper.

Canon duBois left the Episcopal Church following its General Convention of 1976. From that time until his death he was actively working through Anglicans United and the Pro-Diocese of St. Augustine of Canterbury, of which he was an organizer, for the reunion of some Episcopalians and former Episcopalians with the Roman Catholic Church.

Canon duBois completed his seminary training in 1931 at General Theological Seminary in New York City. He was ordained deacon and priest that same year in the Diocese of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He served parishes in Wisconsin, and during the years just before and after World War II, he was rector of Ascension and St. Agnes Parish in Washington, D. C. During the war he served as a army chaplain with the rank of lieutenant colonel, including time in General Patton's Corps.

Canon duBois, whose death came three days before his 74th birthday, was buried in Neenah, Wis., where he was born in 1906. A memorial fund has been established in his honor.

There is an entry in in the Episcopal Dictionary of the Church that describes him as an "Influential opponent of the ordination of women and a leader of splinter groups", but although it gives somewhat more detail on his parish assignments, it mainly repeats the material in the obituary, and it stresses his post-1976 activities.

Given his longtime position as editor of the American Church News, almost nothing written by him during that period can be found on the web. A web search on "American Church News" brings up no hits.

The American Church Union survives as "the publisher for the Anglican Province of Christ the King", one of numerous "continuing" Anglican groups (duBois associated with it following the failure of his effort to bring the first Anglican Church of North America into the Catholic Church), but it makes no mention of duBois himself. References to it prior to the 1976 TEC General Convention in web searches are almost non-existent.

Among the few extant references to duBois prior to the 1976 convention are one in The Living Church July 23, 1954, in which he discusses something called the Chicago Anglo-Catholic Congress 1954:

Preaching the third (July 11th) in a series of sermons at the Church of the Ascension in Chicago, in preparation for the [1954 Anglo] Catholic Congress, The Rev Canon Albert J DuBois of New York said that the witness of the [1954 Anglo] Catholic Congress was a necessity in the face of the narrow outlook as expressed by Chicago Cardinal Stritch's Pastorl Letter.

Fr DuBois said that the Chicago Congress will show that exclusiveness of the Roman position is not in accord with the facts: it will bring together Anglicans, Polish National Catholics, and Old Catholics from Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, together with representatives of most of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, to show forth the unity and fellowship that exists among them as Catholics, and to make it quite clear that the claim of Rome, to be the only Catholic body in the world is entirely false.

. . . Canon DuBois criticized the retired Suffragan Bishop of Chicago, the Rt Rev Edwin J Randall, for a public statement made in the Episcopal Church press last week in which Bishop Randall deplored the scheduling of the Catholic Congress as an unwise and divisive thing.

The Chicago Anglo Catholic congress did take place, but although it seems to have wanted to borrow the prestige of a series of Anglo Catholic Congresses held in London in the 1920s and 30s, it doesn't seem to have been authorized by the same people. (The London congresses seem to have been primarily gay pride events). The Chicago version seems to be in roughly the same league as the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society's upcoming conference.

More interesting, if mostly from an antiquarian standpoint, is his use of the term "Catholicity", which I don't believe I've ever seen outside Mrs Brandt's television appearances as the St Mary of the Angels parish spokeswoman at the time of the 1977 break. Here's a use of the term from duBois in The Living Church November 30, 1958 This referrred to a controversy over the Church of South India and involved a resolution by the Council of the American Church Union endorsing an editorial written by Canon DuBois saying in part,

The Catholicity of the Church does not depend upon resolutions of General Convention, nor can that Catholicity be altered or abolished by resolutions of General Convention. Our Catholic heritage is firmly written in the Constitution of our Church, of which the Book of Common Prayer is a part.
Canon duBois appears to represent views consistent with later figures like Louis Falk and John Hepworth, that Rome is somehow obligated to recognize groups who identify as Catholic, whatever Rome thinks of them. Obviously this didn't start with the "continuing" movement, and clearly it was rejected by the Catholic Church when such views were expressed in the 1950s. The use of "Catholicity" by Mrs Brandt in 1977 must certainly have come from duBois via Fr Barker, but it basically seems to mean you're Catholic if you say you are, and nobody can say you aren't especially if you use the Book of Common Prayer. Or something.

This gives an insight into the intellectual level of the Anglo-Catholic movement, which I've come to see has been pretty consistently low from the early 20th century through the optimistic reaction of Anglo-Catholics to Anglicanorum coetibus. What we see in duBois is a view that groups over the centuries may have left the Catholic Church for one or another reason, but now both they and Rome should simply overlook any of those issues, and with no other conditions, Rome should accept them back, Anglicans, PNCC, Old Catholic, Orthodox, whatever, without any other questions or conditions. (I'm sure a big part of what Rome should overlook will always be the Church's teachings on sexuality.) The part of Catholic these people want to accept for their own prestige becomes "Catholicity". And I'm a T-Rex if I say I am as well.

I've got to wonder how seriously anyone in Rome took either duBois or the combination of Barker and Brown on their various journeys there. DuBois comes off as little more than a self-promoter who was mainly a legend in his own mind, and among the few people he was ever able to con completely was Jack Barker.