Given Fr Phillips’ high profile in the run-up to the erection of the American Ordinariate I think that the model, or perhaps myth is the more accurate word, of Our Lady of the Atonement (OLA) was regarded as some kind of template for the future North American ordinariate (OCSP): starting with eighteen members, adults and children, within four years membership has swelled and a church is under construction, quickly followed by a school.Fr Barker's position as a grand old man of the movement is puzzling indeed. The story of his attempt to bring the St Mary of the Angels Hollywood parish into the Catholic Church is lugubrious, and given the overall context -- with several other squirrely Episcopalian clergy, he recklessly took then out of The Episcopal Church, prompting years of wasteful litigation that proved disastrous for the Hollywood parish even when it eventually won its case.In fact, after ten years, there are eleven full parishes, ten of which own a building, and one school. Only four full parishes bought churches after entering the OCSP: St Thomas More , Scranton; St John the Baptist, Bridgeport; St John the Evangelist, Calgary; Mt Calvary, Baltimore. Three (Incarnation, Orlando; Christ the King, Towson; and St Barnabas, Omaha) owned their church when they joined. The three Texas former-Pastoral Provision parishes were allowed to take their churches with them.
The five parishes which had to fundraise or dip into an endowment to purchase a building were all up to parish strength or close in terms of membership when they joined the OCSP. So OLA remains a unique example of a community which started with a handful of adult members and grew into a “full-service” Catholic parish.
The small communities, whether composed of former Anglican fellow-parishioners or newly-gathered by a candidate for ordination, have remained small. Nine have ceased to exist. Several others are likely to do so in the next few years. Rather than evangelising, communities seem to be tapping into the Trad Catholic market. I note that Fr Bolin, the new administrator of St Thomas Becket, Ft Worth, who seems to be increasing attendance in a community which had dwindled significantly since Fr Stainbrook’s departure, was celebrating a Latin mass in a park recently. All fine, but not how AC was supposed to justify itself.
But beyond that, the attempted St Mary's do-over in 2012 was an even bigger disaster.
I just don't see what's worth celebrating, but more to the point, I don't see how any of this is a model for evangelization.
