How Is This Catholic?

Let me preface this post by stressing, again, that in 2013, unable to enter the Church via Anglicanorum coetibus, I joined the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church via RCIA. Since then I've attended novus ordo masses. My view is that, as a convert, it would be absurd for me to say that the Church to which I converted somehow got it all, or even some of it, wrong in Vatican II. So I've been increasingly skeptical of the tendency of the North American ordinariate to ally itself, in however unspoken a way, with the pre-Conciliarist movement in the Church.

A visitor sent me a copy of the announcement to the St Barnabas Omaha ordinariate parish of the appointment of a new pastor, Dcn Stephen Hilgendorf. The announcement was accompnied by what seems to have become the standard pastoral family portrait, the deacon himself with his wife and children. The wife and family are unusual in themselves for the diocesan priesthood, of course, but even more unusual is that his wife and daughter are wearing chapel veils. The Roman Catholic Church has no particular prescription regarding women's head covering, but the implication, in Omaha now as elsewhere, seems to be that if women in the ordinariate aren't wearing chapel veils, they aren't with the program.

The puzzling thing here is that Anglicanorum coetibus was, at least originally, intended to create an environment where Anglicans could feel comfortable coming to a Catholic mass, or something like that. But neither Episcopalians nor continuers had chapel veils as a practice. This is, for Catholics, an archaism maintained, as far as I can observe, either by elderly women or younger women from countries where this has been a more recent practice -- but there is no liturgical or doctrinal requirement for it, and the Church has no position. Ladies who are plenty devout come to mass in our parish without them.

By the same token, the ordinariate, though this isn't universal, seems to have adopted a preference for receiving communion kneeling and on the tongue. In at least some cases, this is enforced by distributing the sacrament via intinction, leaving the communicant no option, though the Church allows either. I'm told, though, that intinction is from the Catholic perspective in fact a post-Conciliar innovation. Here it seems to be adopted as, like chapel veils, something of an affected archaism, though in the Church intinction isn't archaic at all.

For that matter, I'm told that despite the stuffiness of the Divine Worship liturgy, the masses at the Our Lady of the Atonement ordinariate parish are very popular because they're the only place in town where people can get the sacrament on the tongue. The position of the USCCB, that is, the Roman Catholic Church, is that communion in the hand and on the tongue are equally valid. As I age and my hands shake, I prefer it on the tongue for convenience, but each winter, our parish suspends the practice during flu season and has naturally extended it during the current COVID situation.

I deal with it. I certainly don't go hunting for some parish an hour's drive away where I can get the sacrament on the tongue no matter what. What is Dcn Hilgendorf's policy on administering on the tongue? What would happen if, like most Episcopalians, I came to his communion rail with my hands extended?

The impression I have, just from the photo with the announcement of his appointment, is that Dcn Hilgendorf is With The Program, which is to say that he endorses neither Anglican nor typically Catholic practices like chapel veils and effectively compulsory communion on the tongue, and possibly post-Conciliar innovations like intinction -- a highly idiosyncratic and not even very Anglican combination that suggests there's quite a bit of private judgment being introduced to Catholicism in the ordinariate. And it looks like he's enthusiastic about it.

It reminds me of recent remarks by Bp Barron to the effect that you don't get any higher authority in the Catholic Church than an ecumenical council. To pre-Conciliarists who say there are certain parts of Vatican II they don't accept, he asks what parts of Trent they don't accept. What parts of the Nicene Creed do they not accept? There's a word for people who think this way, and it's Protestants.

I'm more and more convinced that the practical implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus has been, rather than welcome Anglicans into the Catholic Church, instead to create something like a whole new Protestant denomination, Anglo-Liberal in its orientation though affecting eclectic conservative forms, with the not fully witting endorsement of Catholic authorities.

I note that Dcn Hilgendorf's background includes a bachelor's from Hillsdale College. I've taken many of Hillsdale's on line courses, and I'm convinced it's possible to get a much better education there than I got in the Ivy League 50 years ago. I've also been highly impressed by the class participaion of students there in video classes -- but I'm sure Dr Arnn carefully picks them for such sessions, because I know from some I've met that it's very possible to go to Hillsdale College and still be silly.

I'm not yet sure about Dcn Hilgendorf. I would, though, expect a Hillsdale alum to do better than get with the ordinariate program, especially if he's claiming to be, of all things, a Catholic priest. Dcn Hilgendorf, what parts of USCCB policy don't you accept? There must certainly be some.