Our banner has been updated to reflect the upcoming canonization and the resulting name change, moving from quasi-parish to full parish status, as we are to become established as St John Henry Newman Catholic Church.A worthwhile question is, what's changed? The ordinariate's Guide to Parish Development gives criteria that must be met to become a full parish. The specific Newman community in Irvine seems to have been hovering somewhere just below the minimum number of families or members -- 30 or 100 -- for some years, and Fr Bartus has turned his attention to the Holy Martyrs group in Murrieta, with only supply priests normally celebrating mass in Irvine. My understanding is that the ordinariate's Pastoral Council had not approved a move to full parish status for some time before now, despite attempts (or perhaps not-quite attempts).
By the same token, I'm not sure if the other criteria, like assets, financial model, and physical location, have changed. The criteria in the Guide are pretty vague: "Assets: Sufficient Debt: Manageable Location: Secured (ownership or long-term agreement)", so they can certainly be fudged. (The asset criterion for quasi-parish is "Assets: Adequate" vs "Sufficient" for a full parish. Big difference!)
Well, pretty clearly Bp Lopes can get what he wants here, although I think the operating philosophy for creating a parish for some time has been "defining deviancy down". Although Fr Bartus will be the titular administrator or pastor of the Newman parish, it doesn't seem as though he'll be "present" if the current arrangement continues, as he's normally celebrating in Murrieta, with supply priests in Irvine.
And the indications are that the Murrieta group is quite a bit larger than the Irvine group. Is it being factored into the size and location of the Irvine group in some way, possibly as a parish mission of Irvine?
And precisely what is the agreement that allows the Irvine group to occupy the oratory chapel at the Busch facility? I've speculated before that the firm could at any time simply find another use for that space as part of a remodel. If this is just an ex gratia arrangement without a specific agreement specifying terms and conditions, it isn't really stable.
And when, by the way, will full parishes anywhere begin to issue annual financials like those Our Lady of the Atonement has begun to produce? Clearly there's room for improvement at OLA, but from most of the other full parishes, we've had nothing.
So far, every indication we have is that the ordinariate's affairs are in some measure just smoke and mirrors.
UPDATE: My regular correspondent refers me to page 2 of the most recent newsletter from St Thomas More Scranton:
While the Parish continues to grow, the gratifying sight of increasingly full pews on Sunday mornings has not yet translated into closing the gap between our income and our expenses. The Parish continues to run on as lean a budget as possible, but expenses beyond our reach to control continue to challenge our ability to keep up.Not sure how this translates into Assets: Adequate or Assets: Sufficient. Defining deviancy down seems to be the operant principle.
