Building Religious Orders From Scratch!

In recent weeks, we've had published remarks from both Bp Lopes and Msgr Newton to the effect that they're both building whole dioceses "from scratch" -- indeed, at least in Houston's case, without the benefit of experienced men in key roles like vocation director. Clearly Mr Dennerly in yesterday's post has been influenced by this soap-box racer approach to running the Church, to the extent that he proposes establishing a whole new sorta-kinda religious order from scratch, notwithstanding the experience in Calgary. A diocesan visitor commented,

Out of an abundance of frustration I am sending you links to three Benedictine communities that have European roots (as all Benedictine communities hail back to the sixth century in what is now Italy). All of these groups are associated with larger organizations that span more than one country, one of which is Merry Olde England. It took me longer to type this email than find these and many more.

The Trappists: Originally from France, they have multiple Abbeys and Monasteries in the US. They had a nice history of the Rule of St. Benedict on their site that was worth the read.

The Solesmes Congregation: Also originally from France, the newest group in Hulbert, OK, USA, Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey, celebrates their Masses in Latin using the 1962 Liturgy and Gregorian Chant. They have a very unique history in the US in that the Americans who went to France and then came back did so because they were inspired by a Great Books program at the University of Kansas in the 1970’s. Bishop James Conley, the patriarch of Lincoln, NE, became a convert because of that very Great Books program.

Last but not least, if these folks were really interested in Anglican Patrimony, the English Benedictine Congregation: This group, founded and primarily located in the UK has satellite groups in the US, Peru and Zimbabwe.

These folks do not seem to be interested in true spirituality, if they were they would live in one of these places first to discern if this is what the Holy Spirit is asking them to do. Then they would move on to create a new community if so inspired. Note, however, all these congregations began with multiple people and then grew to rather larger numbers BEFORE they became orders, some groups taking decades or longer.

The Catholic Church is not like its Protestant Brothers in autonomy. Every Tom, Dick and Harry does not get to invent something and then declare it Catholic. It works the other way. The Catholic Church invents something and Tom, Dick and Harry join and propagate. Anglican Patrimony does not seem to recognize this and thus the wheel spinning and “air castles”.

The whole Ordinariate project seems to suffer under the delusion, “If you build it, people will come” rather than the old school Catholic model, “Come with us and we will build it together.”

Certainly if a 14-year old came to his parish pastor and said, "Father, I think I may have a vocation to the consecrated life, but I keep thinking I want to start my own order -- I've been reading about Newman and the oratories," the priest would basically tell him to reflect further, maybe calm down, and certainly visit an existing monastery to get an introduction and flavor of what things are about. This is the sort of thing somone should maybe have been suggesting to Mr Dennerly before he went off with his half-baked proposal -- except that this is clearly fine in the current atmosphere of the ordinariates.