My Episcopal rector had given me some advice. As my family and I were leaving Rhode Island and heading to Texas to begin this work, he said, “It’ll be difficult, but do things as though the place is a major parish. People can’t come to things that you don’t have.” I took his advice to heart. . .The problem we've come to see about "this work" in San Antonio is that so much of it was smoke and mirrors from the start. A major ingredient in the apparent success of the "work" was Fr Phillips's willingness to give Dcn Orr a free hand with the lads as a reward for running the school -- but the school has always had a tumultuous history and is currently on financial thin ice. Not to mention that a good part of it is an empty shell.
Fr Phillips was in fact running a con. I was reminded of this in the latest episode of CNBC's American Greed:
In 2017, a man claiming to be a member of the ultra-wealthy Saudi royal family, named Prince Khalid Bin Al-Saud, entered into talks with real estate developers to make a $400 million investment in an iconic luxury hotel on Miami Beach.As I pointed out yesterday, there's something self-contradictory about trying to start a boutique operation that stresses personal attention -- receiving communion kneeling and directly from a priest like Episcopalians do -- but urging organizers to act is if they're a parish too big to make this a practical option. Something doesn't compute here.. . . Khalid regularly drove around the luxury enclave in a 2016 Ferrari California (with a base price of roughly $200,000) sporting diplomatic license plates and a security detail. He was also known to ride around in other luxury vehicles, from a Bentley to a Rolls Royce, while traveling on yachts and private jets.
. . . There was just one problem: The man calling himself Prince Khalid Bin Al-Saud — to his wealthy neighbors and business partners who had handed him millions of dollars in investments — was actually a con-man named Anthony Gignac. Far from being a member of the Saudi royal family (which has an estimated net worth of more than $1 trillion), Gignac was actually born in Colombia and moved to Michigan at age 6, when he and his brother were adopted by a middle-class couple.
And I'm not completely sure how many things you can find at an actual big parish, like adoration, were ever available at Our Lady of the Atonement. As far as I can see, Fr Phillips conducted a Bible study, but this has apparently been discontinued, and neither of the priests currently there has taken it up.
But a big parish avails itself of formal Bible study programs from sources like Ascension and Augustine Institute. A big parish has youth programs and youth ministries via programs like LifeTeen and Steubenville. It has retreats.
Isn't it something of a con to recommend that people setting up an evensong group somehow try to think or act like they're an actual large, successful Catholic parish? But you can't con an honest man.
Is there something behind all this that's too good to be true, Mr Smith? You're urging people to pledge realistic amounts to their project, and that's to your credit. But even if a group of several dozen tithes, there are limits to what they can accomplish, and suggesting the sky's the limit is, it seems to me, a sin against prudence at minimum.
People are conned, like the "Saudi prince's" marks in the TV show, because they think they're getting something for nothing. What are people, especially cradle Catholics who should know better, being convinced they'll get for nothing in a storefront "church", a basement chapel, or a dilapidated old building?
It concerns me yet again that there seems to be so little insight in ordinariate social media, particularly among people who should be exhibiting wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.
