A Few More California Ordinariate Details

After yesterday's post, I was still puzzled about exactly who was taking masses at Holy Martyrs Murrieta, with Fr Bartus on his strange sabbatical until fall. It's hard to know whether this might be some sort of indisposition, since travel seems highly unlikely under current conditions. In any case, my regular correspondent tells me Fr Aaron Bayles, who lives in San Luis Opispo county, CA, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is celebrating the Sunday masses there.

This has always had me scratching my head. Fr Bayles in his time as an ordinariate priest has been celebrating in Southern California, which has always been at least a couple hundred miles away. The distance from his home to Murrieta is about 244 miles, about four hours, which means every mass he celebrates involves a 488 mile round trip. The 2020 US IRS mileage reimbursement rate is 57.5 cents per mile, which means that in addition to his stipend for celebrating mass, the parish should be reimbursing him nearly $300 for the found trip. They really owe him a nice lunch, too.

This would be nearly as much for the masses he previously celebrated for the small groups in Pasadena and Covina, and I doubt if those groups could have reimbursed him for that amount from offerings. Of Fr Bayles's current assignment, my regular correspondent says,

Apart from agreeing to celebrate a mass on Sunday, one which apparently cannot accommodate all the HM, Murrieta parishioners who wish to attend, Fr Bayles seems to have distanced himself from the Bartus franchise. As we recall, Fr Bartus celebrated mass in a poky general purpose classroom chapel at a school in Pasadena for months to gather a congregation that could be Fr Bayles’s ticket to ordination.

He was received into the Church only a few weeks before his ordination to the diaconate in November 2017, presumably in order to keep his job as an Anglican chaplain with the Air National Guard. After his ordination to the priesthood in May 2018 the congregation moved to a more attractive cafetorium in another school in Pasadena and then to the Sacred Heart Chapel in Covina.

Shortly thereafter, Fr Bayles was deployed to Aviano AFB for several months and from that point has not been involved with the “SoCal Ordinariate.” When not undertaking chaplaincy responsibilities he seems to have become associated with a [Ventura County, CA] TLM community [over 100 miles from his home].

Samuel Keyes, the new deacon and PA at HM, Murrieta, seems to be a cut above Frs Baaten and Bayles, both of whom had unimpressive academic credentials and very brief experience as “continuing” Anglican clergy.

Well, Dcn Keyes, let's face it, appears to be a full adult, a cut above not only Frs Baaten and Bayles, but Fr Bartus and a good many other current ordinariate clergy as well. I would guess, in fact, that having Dcn Keyes now so closely involved in his home community, and having Fr Simington in near proximity, could well create problems for Fr Bartus at such time as he returns from sabbatical. I think those who know him -- I did for two years in 2011-12 -- would agree he's simply not in the same league as either Dcn Keyes or Fr Simington.

My read of the situation, for instance, is that Fr Simington seems comfortable living and working day to day with celibate diocesan priests, who are serious men. I would guess that given Dcn Keyes's resume, although married with a family, he'd fit in easily with priests of that caliber. This is not Fr Bartus, who tends more toward socializing and playing politics with laity.

In my experience, this will require managerial and personnel skills from Bp Lopes, which I'm just not sure he has -- but let's get real, Fr Perkins is the one who'll be directly involved in keeping this situation on an even keel. A modern Trollope could make this seem funny, but it's really not funny at all.