About fifty people in attendance. Some young people, mostly young men. The one liturgy I attended—-Morning Prayer—-was well-done but nothing special. Fr Barker was a no-show for health reasons. His paper was read by a young woman and described his 1970s efforts, which he'd already published on line. There was no opportunity to ask questions, a waste of time.Well, the reporter seemed impressed with Bp Lopes's articulateness, although I would say that had there been a transcript, we probably would have noticed the gaseous generalities that were in his interview in the Register. But that's just me.David Warren is a former Anglican who now attends a Latin Mass parish. He mentioned several times that his conversion predated the proclamation of Anglicanorum coetibus by a decade. He also said that if his schedule precludes a Latin mass, he attends a Portuguese mass. He also said he would not have been interested in the ordinariate had it existed when he entered the Church, because he was angry at the Anglican church and wanted to get as far away as possible from anything that reminded him of it. Why was he there?
Bp Lopes began with a “Things aren’t as bad as they look” survey of positives in the ordinariate. He is confident and articulate. He has a sense of humor. He spoke fluently with few notes, and then took questions with aplomb. He mentioned that the OCSP model going ahead would be ordinariate priests as pastors of diocesan parishes while also ministering to ordinariate communities, as in Kansas City and Washington, DC. He said there would be two more such arrangements in the new year.
He discussed the ordinariate challenges, honing in on lack of resources, A very important point he made is that “Anglican Patrimony” is what the Vatican says it is. It’s not up for discussion. Liturgy, yes. Married priests, no way. His thinking is entirely from the “Roman” side. He’s doing a job. I felt more confidence in his administrative gifts, but if I were looking for Anglicanism coming into the Church, I would be pretty bummed out.
He warmed up in talking about how there had to be more liturgical conformity in the ordinariate, how former Anglican clergy had to get in line with the rubrics and understand the difference between “shall” and “may,” and similar points. So “Anglican Treasures” are not unique, they offer nothing we don’t already have, they are means to ends the Church has already established without any input from you, was the take-away.
Bp Lopes took off for Houston right after his opening remarks. He saved what was otherwise a non-event. Fr Cross’s excellent lecture on Newman was an academic paper not appropriate for this conference. Mood was muted and low-energy. I felt tension and disappointment. Sort of like a party meeting after an election you thought you were going to win but didn’t.
A more interesting question is the new idea that now we're going to make the ordinariate into a deal where ordinariate priests pastor diocesan parishes. Er, wasn't that the idea behind the Pastoral Provision? Except that now, the ordinariate priests report to a different bishop but work in a diocesan bishop's parish. Who's in charge? And presumably going forward, these are going to be celibate men, so we make the problem of wives and kids in the rectory disappear poof, just like that.
What do we do with the men we're still taking in with said wives and families? We've neither laid them off, bought them out, nor ended that part of the whole program. This whole new direction sounds pretty vague -- but going beyond that, not two weeks ago, he referred in the Register interview to
people who are at least nominally within the Church, baptized Catholics or whatever, or for whoever for whatever reason their faith has grown lukewarm and their practice has grown spotty at best or something like this. That they can be welcomed and supported and encouraged in a particular way.Which is the Bartus model, bending the rules to attract cradle Catholics when there aren't enough Anglicans to make a parish by claiming the cradle Catholics want reheating from ordinariate priests -- who in fact are married with kids and apparently, at least in The Woodlands, still deserve a 3,000 square foot million-dollar rectory. So the model going forward seems to be whatever Bp Lopes seems to think will justify whatever he's doing at that particular moment.
So I keep falling back on my experience in the corporate Dilbert world, where impressively smooth-talking golden boys run the show until what they're doing is finally so unworkable that the powers that be must back off in belatedly comical circumstances. But maybe that's just me. I still think Bp Lopes is a guy who's flailing around, completely out of his depth.
