St Luke's: Ordinariate Makeover Of A Diocesan Parish

My regular correspondent has referred me to an e-mail from Fr Vidal on progress at St Luke's, which has moved from a centrally located host parish in the District of Columbia to a moribund diocesan facility in suburban Fort Washington, MD. Although Fr Vidal is listed as both the pastor of the ordinariate parish and the administrator of the St Ignatius diocesan parish, there can be little doubt as to which prelature is now in the catbird seat there.

The most difficult change is related to Mass times. Fr. Herbert, the retiring pastor, recommended the elimination of the noon Sunday Mass, so it was replaced with the Divine Worship (Ordinariate) Mass at 11:00 am. Additionally, in order to restore a Christian formation program at St. Ignatius, a Sunday School program for adults and children has begun on Sundays at 9:30 am running concurrently with a new Mass time that replaces the previously scheduled one at 10:30 am.

. . . Liturgical changes have also been received by many parishioners quite positively. One such popular change is receiving communion at the altar rail, allowing some moments of adoration prior to reception of the Blessed Sacrament. Also, by necessity due to the smallness of the sanctuary space, all Masses are now ad orientem. Additionally, while challenging for some parishioners to learn, I have implemented at all Roman Missal Masses the use of ICEL's (International Commission on English in the Liturgy) setting of the Ordinary to reflect the desire of the Congregation on Divine Worship for the restoration of Gregorian chants at Mass. I believe, over time, this will result in a Mass that expresses the beauty of holiness and awakens the desire of our people to participate fully in the mission our Lord has given us.

We have absolutely no information on how the population of the new shared facility breaks down, but it's pretty clear that the Ordinary Form mass is in second place, rescheduled to 9:30 with adult education competing with it at the same time. So if you want the OF mass, you don't get adult education, which is apparently meant only for first class passengers. Or do I have this wrong? Or perhaps the adult education conveys only the precious treasures of the Anglican spiritual patrimony, huh?

And oh, by the way, everyone now gets ad orientem celebration, OF and DW both. This is also puzzling. I don't believe there's any requirement across the board that all ordinariate parishes celebrate ad orientem; at least Christ the King Towson celebrates versus populum. And while I wasn't much of a churchgoer throughout most of the 1970s, my memory of TEC masses throughout the period before the 1979 BCP was that the 1928 rite was celebrated versus populum in parishes I visited in Manhattan, New Hampshire, Maryland, Wisconsin, and California. (St Thomas Fifth Avenue was among these, a liturgically conservative Anglo-Catholic parish.)

I don't know if the ladies who attend the DW mass at St Luke's wear chapel veils, but it seems to me that, like ad orientem worship, it's a pre-Conciliar affectation that's been adopted by some ordinariate parishes who seek to be both more Anglican than the Archbishop of Canterbury and more Catholic than the pope. How will this play with the diocesan people at St Ignatius? And this leaves aside the restoration of Gregorian chants for the diocesan congregants there. Can't escape the Gleichschaltung, it would seem.

We're in a large and successful diocesan parish that has a reverent OF mass celebrated versus populum. The missal has hundreds of hymns from many traditions, including Anglican, led by a choir with professional musicians. I have no idea what would happen if someone decided to introduce ad orientem celebration and Gregorian chants. Unless this were done by clergy with already high credibility and over a long period, with great sensitivity, I think it would probably clear the place out.

It's hard for me to escape a sense that the archdiocese tolerates this only because the parish would otherwise have been closed entirely. Maybe Fr Vidal can perform some sort of miracle and write some sort of success story. I assume the archdiocese gets a cut on the 9:30 collection and the ordinariate of the 11:00, but if Fr Vidal is making it this clear that the ordinriate members are riding first class, the diocesan in a coach that's run out of box lunches, I can get an idea of where things are headed.

And what is Bp Lopes expecting here? It sounds like it's some version of the Fr Phillips formula (Fr Vidal uses the "beauty of holiness" phrase in his letter), lots of more-Catholic-than-the-pope fuss and feathers while looking the other way at -- well, looking the other way at some other stuff, and covering up financial distress with smoke and mirrors. But the Phillips model is already collapsing in San Antonio. I don't see that Bp Lopes has any other formula he can fall back on.

We'll have to see how things pan out, but I have a sense we won't have to wait too long.