Let's Look At The Demand Side Of The Equation

For the past couple of days, we've looked at the supply side of the ordinariate clergy market, in particular the personnel moves involving the parochial vicar position at Our Lady of the Atonement. (I would say "curate", but we've dropped the Anglicanorum from the coetibus.) In secular terms, Bp Lopes has cut Fr Moore's hours, at least insofar as his ordinariate work is concerned, and sent him to Indianapolis so Bp Lopes can put Fr Jenkins into the Atonement slot, transferring him from Wisconsin, where at least from the ordinariate's viewpoint he'd had ho hours, but now in Texas he's full time.

From a secular standpoint, if we were talking stock clerks in a store, there aren't enough hours to pay two full time positions, so either one worker gets full hours and another gets very few, or each could be paid less than full time, but there'd be a greater appearance of equity. But as it happens, at least part time work is available in a different store to make up the difference. In secular terms, there's not enough work at Joe's Auto Parts to pay two full time clerks, but Bert's Garage has so much business that at least the one who's short on hours can make up the time -- although the work at Bert's Garage is harder and dirtier.

That was the supply side. Why is the demand side such that there aren't enough hours to justify two full time workers, at least at Joe's Auto Parts? Good question. A visitor sent me a viewpoint on this earlier this weak:

Your blog today reminds me of the market response when presented with two platforms for viewing/recording movies in the pioneer age of home available videos. In most respects, Betamax was a superior platform in terms of quality of image and retention but cost more for the device and the media to be used compared to VHS. It is no secret which platform survived. All the “..but the image quality was better”, “… the sound is better!”, “…you don’t know what you are missing.” gave way to a platform more people exponentially would access because it was more affordable and the trade-off between cost and quality was deemed by masses as acceptable.

Yes, I think most Catholics would love a high quality Mass with professional grade choirs and music, beautiful visuals of clothing, vessels, and surroundings but they are willing to trade off some of that beauty or singing quality or grandeur to have a good Mass that is convenient, consistent and allows some leeway for dress, attitude and possibly even catechesis. God is perfect, man is not. So what is the goal? To cast a small, specific net for only a few of the highest quality fish we can get or to cast a wide net to gather the highest number of maybe not so perfect fish?

If you exchange the word “souls” for “fish” in the previous sentence you can see this playing out before our eyes with the Ordinariate experiment. My money is on VHS fish.

I think there are other factors in the "least bad" model. In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is liturgically diverse as well as diverse in every other way, there are at least three Latin masses within about half an hour's drive on Sunday. We've never been seriously tempted to try any out. We found a novus ordo parish nearby with a music program probably better than any Episcopalian parish we've attended and hardworking, inspiring clergy, one of whom is probably the smartest man I've ever met (I haven't actually met Prof Feser).

In part, this is probably because we didn't go into the Church with a checklist of Things We Wanted, which of course would amount to Things We Wanted Out Of The Almighty, when of course He would have a different plan in any case. The Almighty, when you think about it, doesn't need to do market research.

It seems to me that liturgy is only one part of the formula, but the ordinariates are focusing almost entirely on liturgy -- in fact, the re-emphasis on the Divine Worship missal as a special kind of extreme mass that only by-the-way incorporates Anglican contributions drops a good part of the original rationale behind the Pastoral Provision, that it would appeal to conservative Episcopalians who were looking for something recognizable in a Catholic parish.

In fact, the impression I have is that more Catholic parishes are seeking, with programs like LifeTeen, to incorporate more Evangelical and Charismatic features in worship. This movement certainly seems to have much more energy -- and indeed, far more money -- behind it than the liturgical perfectionism implicit in the ordinariates.

The bottom line is that, even in an environment where the secular rewards for ordinariate clergy are mostly nowhere near as great as those for main line Protestant clergy, the North American ordinariate has too many priests, such that for many, their positions are part time. And let's face it, the low pay is creating a high defect rate, but the store is doing so poorly it can't hire a competent quality assurance inspector.

Stein's Law: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."