I can now verify that in September 2018 the OCSP did have eight celibate seminarians. Since that time, two have been ordained to the priesthood, three are still in formation, and three have left seminary. One new candidate has entered seminary.A question popped into my head: where, I wonder, is the Anglican Patrimony component in the ordinariate seminary curriculum? As far as I can see, there isn't one, unless someone can set me straight. During the startup phase of Anglicanorum coetibus, it was apparently assumed that if you ordained an existing Anglican clergyman, he had the patrimony baked in, and you just had to do some touchup in canon law or whatever to bring him up to product spec.I was looking at this issue apropos of the news item about Holy House; in passing I noticed an item in the Ordinariate Observer about St Margaret, Katy mentioning that it had ninety families registered and Easter attendance was 143. Less than two years later it had folded, with no apparent notice taken.
Also noted that despite the fact that all the articles were puff pieces, the Ordinariate Observer was an actual news source, of professional quality. It seems incredible that it has been issued so rarely —- perhaps twice a year, and nothing since the summer of 2019. Hard to understand why the Ordinariate has never made communication a priority.
But of course, this applied only to the window-dressing tier of ordinands, the ones from Nashotah House or Yale Divinity, not to the ones with mail order degrees or no degree at all. Where did they get their Anglican Patrimony? Well, not all of those neeeded it for more than a few years, huh? But that goes to the question of whether even the Ordinariate Observer is anything but a corporate-media wannabe, producing a slickly packaged fantasy.
So let's move on to a hypothetical new ordinariate seminarian who's presented himself for formation perhaps at the end of his undergraduate studies. Here there are two choices. He can present an Episcopalian pedigree of some sort, though of course he wasn't raised in a Catholic family, but somehow, perhaps watching Downton Abbey or reading Barchester Towers, he thought a sorta-kinda Catholic kind of Anglicanism would be a good idea. (I go looking for unicorns at the LA Zoo as well, come to think of it.)
The other choice is that he was raised in an ordinariate parish by a family qualifying for membership and already had ex Episcopalian Catholic credentials, and thought he had a vocation. There seems to be a small number of these, though there's an attrition rate in seminary. (Even so, wouldn't a capable guy raised Catholic see better career prospects in his local diocese? In light of the seriousness of that career choice, shouldn't he investigate all his options carefully?)
And that brings me to the question of the ordinariate as a career choice. Our novus ordo parish, as part of what appears to have been an intricate deal, had to surrender a highly capable associate to fill an mergency vacancy in another parish. It got a temporary fill-in for confessions and visitations, but apparently our pastor worked out a deal where he got the pick of this summer's ordinands as a more permanent replacement.
And a pick he appears to be. Our pastor asks us to pray for "normal" men to take up vocations, and this guy is "normal" in the sense our pastor implies, but other than that, he's poised, well-spoken, and smart. My guess is he'll have a good career. A good career in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is probably not a bad thing.
Why would any guy with those prospects choose a career in the ordinariate? I think of Edward Feser reasoning that stability and predictability are essential objects for the rule of law. It seems to me that they're also essential characteristics of an ecclesiastical organization. It won't function well without them, but it also won't attract capable men to careers.
The North American ordinariate is neither stable nor predictable. After eight years, it hasn't improved. The men it's attracting, whether from Anglican careers or new seminarians, appear not to be "normal" in the sense our pastor has in mind.
By the way, why do people continue to support this whole phony enterprise? If there's a payoff for the poor clergy applicants -- it's the only alternative, after all -- what's the payoff for the laity? There's got to be one.
