The big difference is that, although ingredients were there -- weepy sentimentality, Episcopalians coming home, grassroots activism -- it didn't catch on with corporate media. It didn't matter if the Episcopalians weren't coming home, nor was there grassroots interest, the media would have created it if it didn't exist.
A big part of the problem for corporate media is that it painted a potentially attractive picture of Catholicism, with educated members of the elite at least theoretically drawn to it. Never mind it wasn't happning, the media would have invented it if it had suited them. A bigger problem was at the source, Benedict XVI was, as the US president would put it, a highly overrated person. Anglicanorum coetibus was one of his major initiatives. He was also going to fix the money issues via Abp Viganò. Instead, he retired.
It's worth noting that not even the National Catholic Register spends much ink on the North American ordinariate. It started out mostly as a creature of Anglo-Catholic alternate media, but within a few years of the ordinariate's establishment, those disappeared.
Anglicanorum coetibus also emerged as a response to the "coontinuing" Anglican movement, which as its historian Doublas Bess has pointed out in Divided We Stand has always been a creature of wishful thinking and hucksterism. With the exception of David Virtue, neither corporate nor alternate media ever paid much attention to it, either.
It's also symptomatic that the ordinariate has attracted a remarkable number of frauds, con men, and phonies, chief among whom is Fr Christopher Phillips, but he isn't unoique, with the Gilbertine "brothers" a close second. And I'm still waiting for Dcn Wooten just to show us the wire transfer receipt for the mysteriuous million-dollar gift. No need to mention names, just blank account numbers out in the copy. A cobfirmaton that a transfer took place and a bank balance is plenty.
The best treatment of contemporary hoaxes by far is the film The Big Short. I highly recommebnd it. My wife and I watch it a couple of times each year. If there were a way to short the North American ordinariate, I'd do it. But in any case, the best strategy is not to send good money after bad, and certainly not to plan long-term careers on it, or expect most communities to continue in a way that will support a family's spiritual growth.
If you can't short, it's time to pull your money out.
