As some of your visitors have commented, a lack of communication seems to be prevalent in the Ordinariate. An organization such as The Anglican Coetibus Society could help, but it seems to be a closed society. I don't know if the average parishioner knows of its existence. Has it ever been referenced in parish bulletins, or links from parish websites?My regular correspondent remarked just yesterday,
It is interesting to compare the website of the Friends of the Ordinariate, the UK version of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society to what the AC Society seems able to produce. The contrast is immediately obvious, in layout and content.So I guess the first question I would have is what, if anything, someone looking for information on the North American ordinariate would gain from going to the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society website.Not to say that the content, on close reading, is uniformly stimulating, but the overall impression is one of professionalism and seriousness.
The first thing that strikes me is that its theme and objectives seem to be somehow off kilter. At the sorta-kinda top of the page is DEDICATED TO PROMOTING THE ANGLICAN TRADITION & COMMON IDENTITY WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.. But what is the "Anglican Tradition"? High church, broad church, low church, Anglo-Catholic, or all of the above? It's so vague, it can go on to embrace Wind in the Willows. Peter Pan, or Upstairs, Downsairs -- a Disneyfied, Masterpiece Theater style of maybe religious endorsement. The problem I see is that this separates style from anything like doctrine, which I suppose is good Episcopalianism if nothing else.
By the same token, what is "common identity"? Catholics are Christian, and many Christian denominations acknowledge a common Christian identity. (I do note recently that while moderate Evangelicals acknowledge that Catholics are Christian, radicals like Pastor John MacArthur do not.) But this does say that Catholics and most Protestants acknowledge a common Christian identity, which means that for all intents and purposes, saying the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society promotes "common identity" is nothing more than a bromide.
I'm not at all sure who is currently on the Society's Board of Directors. A web search brings up only two entries from 2015 on the Ordinariate Expats blog, here and here. As of those 2015 entries, the board was comprised of Fr. Eric Bergman. Fr. Ernie Davis, Fr. Allan Hawkins, Dr. William J. Tighe, Ms. Deborah Gyapong, Herr Doktor Professor Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Mr. David Murphy, and Ms. Antonia Lynn.
Other references indicate that Mr Shane Schaetzel was on the board at some subsequent date, but has now left it. I can't find any listing of board members on the Society's website. Nor can I find it on the weekly news page (which, by the way, between the tiny print and the creamed-spinach background for many items is unreadable). I would surmise that at least some of the people listed in the 2015 blog posts are surprised that they were ever members of such a board.
So oddly, as I so often find myself, I'm again in a position of being the de facto news coordinator for the North American ordinariate, although I'm not a member, and my actual purpose throughout this project has been to caution Catholics that they have far better resources available to them locally within the novus ordo Church than they may think they can find on a distant website.
But in that spirit, if someone can provide a current list of board members for the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society -- and if perhaps a board member can serve as a central contact point for constructive feedback on how that body can radically improve its service to the Church, which is currently self-congratulatory but completely inadequate -- I'll be happy to publish this information here.
I think it goes without saying that the current website redo, and especially the unreadable newsletter, do not serve the purpose. Again, if ordinariate members are willing to step up to the plate and actually perform a real service, I'll be most happy to take up other projects for my life and move on from this blog.
