Several Very Knowledgeable People

have added their perspectives to the question that came up in Sunday's post, which basically comes down to what sort of pastoral care a parish going into the Ordinariate can provide to members who cannot, or choose not to, become Catholic. As I revisit the issue, I've come to realize that the parish was trying to address this question immediately prior to the erection of the Ordinariate in January 2012, and so could get no clear guidance from the Ordinary, whose identity had not been announced.

Several parish meetings were held during December 2011 and January 2012, in which this question was formally or informally discussed. I don't believe anyone kept detailed notes or minutes, and I'm not aware of any recording. (If anyone has any of these, I'd naturally be interested in anything that would help complete the record.) Msgr William Stetson at the time was the representative of Los Angeles Archbishop Gomez, and later was referred to by Msgr Steenson, the Ordinary designated in January 2012, as his representative as well. Msgr Stetson was thus our most authoritative source.

The memory of several people who attended a December 2011 meeting was that Msgr Stetson made statements to the effect that (as one who attended the meeting summarized it to me) "he doesn't check passports at the communion rail and [we] took that to mean that communion would be open to Anglicans at a Catholic Mass at St. Mary's." My own understanding of the guidance we'd received from Msgr Stetson was that the Ordinariate priest would have some sort of pastoral option available that would allow him to give communion to non-Catholics remaining in the parish.

This, of course, contravenes actual Catholic doctrine, which simply says that non-Catholics who have not been properly received into the Church via the sacraments are not eligible for Catholic communion. Whether the parish and the Ordinariate would actually have gotten away with giving Catholic communion to non-Catholics at St Mary's is now a moot point. In our defense, and specifically in defense of Fr Kelley, I would say that although we had had a pretty thorough catechism throughout the summer of 2011, the specific issue of whether a priest could override this particular doctrine didn't come up. (The full Catholic Catechism is a very thick volume.) We were still Anglicans, and Fr Kelley had not yet gone through the additional training that would be needed to become a Catholic priest in the Ordinariate. In that matter, we were relying in good faith on the opinions of Msgr Stetson, a formidable individual well known in conservative Catholic circles, who had been designated by the archbishop to address precisely this sort of question.

At the time this was specifically discussed, there was not yet an Ordinary in place, and I don't believe Msgr Steenson has addressed this issue at any time following his designation. Revisiting the issue from the perspective of events in the subsequent 18 months, this is, from my point of view, one more piece of a puzzle that's given me a picture of people making things up as they go along, winging it over important matters, and letting people with intentions formed on good faith fall through the cracks.

The bottom line from the parish's standpoint, it seems to me, is that it clearly intended to provide pastoral care for parishioners who would not become Catholic, and it relied in good faith on what it took to be the valid opinion of the Catholic authorities, however misguided this reliance may have been. Should there be an opportunity for reconciliation now, of course, it would not be an option to provide Catholic communion to non-Catholics. I've heard ideas on what might actually be done from several people, which all involve having an Anglican priest come in to provide communion to those parishioners in some fashion, whether at a side altar during the Catholic service, or as a separate parish using the St Mary's building for its own Anglican mass.

This would, naturally, have to be worked out between Catholic and Anglican authorities. It's important to recognize that the elected vestry of the parish is prepared to find a way to resolve this problem in good faith, should reconciliation be a real possibility.

People Read This Blog,

including, apparently, the redoubtable Mrs Bush. Last week I posted that the St Mary's web site still listed a rededication of the parish as scheduled for April, which at the time was fast waning. The time reference in that post has since been removed, so that we may now apparently expect the rededication of the parish at the same indefinite future time as the arrival of the Kingdom. I simply don't know if this is now proclaimed as a mystery of faith in the masses said there. The parish will be rededicated again!

It's worth asking what the holdup is here. The decision from last autumn by Judge Linfield remains under appeal, but this has not changed since the rededication was originally scheduled for April. The late lamented Fr Tony was the one who'd originally proposed this rededication, of course, but the Church Universal is not a ministry of men. Why can't the ACA simply carry on? As I said last week, Bishop Marsh, the episcopal visitor, now has two suffragans to help carry his comparatively light load, and given his duty as a bishop, he should be involving himself in the affairs of the parish and diocese, when manifestly he is not.

I can only speculate once again that the conscience of anyone in the ACA who might be involved in the St Mary's situation is troubled, and they don't want to touch it, especially given the unhappy omen of the late vicar general's sudden passing. The bishop and his cronies will tell themselves in the daylight that Tony was in precarious health, but when the sun goes down, they have no such confidence. We are not going to see Bishop Marsh near the West Coast anytime soon, and only the occasional fool like James Barlow will even think of meddling otherwise. When push comes to shove, these men fear the Almighty.

On top of that, the fallout from the St Mary's situation continues to be a black eye for the ACA and the TAC, far more, I think, than they had anticipated. People read this blog. The TAC's de facto press dude, Stephen Smuts, acknowledges this when he characterizes my blog as "one sided vitriolic [sic]". People also read the Freedom for St Mary blog. Random crazies from as far away as the Canadian far north hear of the situation. It couldn't help Fr Tony to have people googling his sorry record as an Episcopal priest. It can't help "Archbishop" Falk to have that little slip in Rhinelander dredged up yet again.

I strongly suspect as well that Mrs Bush is not wearing well with anyone in the hierarchy, and they likely haven't even met some of the angrier cases now running the place. As far as I can tell, Mrs Bush quickly loses patience with whatever feckless stooge the ACA puts in as a curate or supply priest, and one explanation for the calls I've had lately could be that they're going through their rolodex in the next desperate move to provide someone who'll finally make the lady happy.

St Mary's has turned into a tar baby for the ACA. It's a distraction from the need to rebuild the whole Diocese of the West, and one reason they can't hold a synod, as far as I can see, is that the St Mary's case hasn't sat well with the other clergy there. If they can appoint someone like Morello vicar general, whom the rest can't even take seriously, what else can they do?

So, Bishop Marsh, bite the bullet. It might help to find a confessor. But at some point, you're going to have to declare victory and get out.

Step 1 will be to lose Mrs Bush. I assume this has been at the back of everyone's head anyhow. As far as she's concerned, St Mary's is her personal ordinariate, and she's going to stand in the way of any constructive action. Your best bet will be to schedule a gala retirement tribute for her. Heck, if it would help, my wife and I would attend; we'd toast her, we'd applaud, we'd talk about what a wonderful old lady she is. But when, tipsy with champagne, she leaves the dinner, she's out as senior warden.

That's the first step. There are others, but you need to do this one first. Otherwise, you're back to that nagging nightly worry about what happened to Tony.

More tomorrow.

I've Had A Second Contact From Out-Of Town Clergy

about St Mary's in a little over a week. I simply don't know if they're related, nor whether there's a common cause for them, but both (perhaps as clergy might in any circumstance) have asked pretty detailed questions on what's going on, and what the possibilities might be for reconciliation.

So, asked this question in a serious context, I've given it some more thought. Here's what I think is the situation.

1. Roughly 80% of the parish voted in four separate elections during 2011 and 2012 to join the Patrimony of the Primate (which the ACA itself interpreted as leaving the ACA), to join the US Catholic Ordinariate, and again in the summer of 2012 to leave the ACA, which despite two previous statements, claimed it still had control of the parish.
2. These votes were all in accordance with canon law and the parish bylaws. You simply can't ignore them.
3. The parish had a long-standing intent to become Catholic, dating from its early involvement in setting up the Anglican Use provision in the late 1970s, predating the ACA or its ACC predecessor. The ACA also needs to respect this.
4. For those in the parish who did not wish to become Catholic, or for whatever reason were unable to become Catholic, they would nevertheless still be regarded as members and eligible to receive communion once the parish went into the Catholic Ordinariate. (UPDATE: While this promise was made to a parish meeting I attended, I'm told it may not be a valid canonical position in the Catholic Church. As I receive more information, I'll provide clarification.)

As a result, I simply don't see how the ACA can split the difference. If the ACA retains control of the parish, it will be against the wish of a supermajority of the parish as of 2012. While Protestant denominations will generally offer communion to all baptized Christians, only Catholics may receive communion at a Catholic mass, and they may not receive communion at a Protestant mass. There is no way an ACA priest can offer communion to Catholics. By retaining control of the parish, the ACA denies the parish the ability to receive Catholic communion. It's no different from recognizing that by stealing my car, you deny me the ability to drive my car. Singing kumbaya doesn't fix this.

It's worth pointing out that two other parishes that had been in the Patrimony or the equivalent Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family, the Church of the Nativity in Payson, AZ, and the Church of the Incarnation in Orlando, FL, went into the Ordinariate without obstacle from the ACA. The ACA clearly understands that some parishes wished to become Catholic. It is difficult to understand why it chose to seize St Mary of the Angels and not Holy Nativity or Church of the Incarnation.

Any ACA clergy, or other Anglican clergy engaged by the ACA, will have a job that seems to me utterly impossible if he thinks he can reconcile Protestant with Catholic, especially when 80% of the parish had expressed a specific wish to leave the ACA and become Catholic. Under the Ordinariate, there would have been a provision for existing members who chose not to become Catholic to continue to receive pastoral care. There is no way, however, that those who became Catholic in accordance with the parish's intent from the 1970s onward would wish to receive communion from ACA clergy, who would likely be marginal in any case.

UPDATE: Due to the question that was raised over whether non-Catholic members, particularly those with irregular marriage situations, could receive communion once St Mary's entered the Ordinariate, I conveyed my uncertainty to knowledgeable parties. Their response was that it would never have been their intention to drive any members away from the parish as a result of the Ordinariate, and that Msgr Steenson was sensitive to this. While exactly what provision might be made for their pastoral care was not definitely specified, it was everyone’s understanding all along that some provision for the pastoral care of those who did not wish to become, or had obstacles to their becoming, Catholic would be made. Whatever the specific wording of what may have been said in the parish meeting, this was unquestionably the intent. It’s worth pointing out that the 2012 controversy over a priest’s denial of communion to an avowed lesbian in Washington, DC brought out the fact that actually denying anyone communion is not a matter to be taken lightly in the real world, and in the minds of bishops, there may be solutions to these questions that escape laypeople.

It does appear to me that the ACA has got something like a tar baby on its hands here, and tomorrow I will propose a way the ACA can extricate itself.

Who Is David Virtue? -- V

I've nailed it down: David Virtue's "DD" comes from Laud Hall. The Dean and President of that estimable institution e-mailed me yesterday in response to my inquiry:

He received an honorary DD from Laud Hall during the 2002 Synod of the United Anglican Church in Hudson, Florida.

Wikipedia does not have a separate entry for the United Anglican Church, but in its entry on continuing Anglicanism, it lists the UAC with an estimated number of parishes at six. However, the totals listed there for other denominations that I'm familiar with seem high, so I suspect six is stretching the truth.

According to Laud Hall's website,

Following the union of the Traditional Episcopal Church with the Anglo-Catholic Church in the Americas, the Seminary came under the jurisdiction of the United Anglican Church in 2001.

Not only is this honorary "DD" a worthless lagniappe from a laughable institution, it also says something of Virtue's own standards of integrity. It's worth repeating that Virtue identifies himself on his website as a journalist. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics says, in part:

Journalists should:

• Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
• Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
• Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
• Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
• Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.

By receiving an honorary "DD" from a "continuing Anglican" seminary, it seems to me that Virtue has a conflict of interest, since it involves a gift, favor, or special treatment from the seminary and the "continuing Anglican" denomination he's covering. It's been remarked that the source of his "DD" has been a hard item to track down, and I think there are two reasons for this: first, as an honorary degree from a diploma mill, it's a joke. Nevertheless, Virtue thinks it's important to have a "DD" after his name. (But why even bother to jump through this tiny hoop? Why not just claim a PhD out of thin air, like Fr Tony Morello?) But he also won't disclose the source of his "DD", since it compromises his journalistic "integrity".

What this says, I think, is that Virtue shares a lot with the disreputable crew he covers favorably on his blog. They all have phony credentials. They all congratulate each other for their phony MDivs, phony DDs, phony The Rt Revs, phony parishes, phony denominations, and they all kiss Virtue's butt. Virtue loves it.

This is a case study in the banality of evil.

Hmm -- Is There A Pattern Here?

Two features that most people cite as common to the various branches of the Continuum are use of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and the refusal to ordain women. But I keep seeing a third feature, and I think this is an overriding one: the clergy in the Continuum are at the margins of Anglicanism. In some cases, as we saw yesterday with the Very Rev Fr Barlow, if they're still incardinated in the Anglican Communion, they claim degrees from unaccredited institutions, and they came in through one or another side door, like the Philippine Independent Church. Others, from Louis Falk to Anthony Morello to William Martin, left Anglican Communion denominations due to scandal. Still others, like Stephen Strawn or Brian Marsh, were never ordained, and probably never eligible for ordination, in Anglican Communion denominations.

In other words, when you travel with the Continuum, you're traveling third class. If there's a part of the St Mary of the Angels story that hasn't been fully elaborated here, I think it's that the clergy who'd been there while the parish was in the Patrimony had degrees, both BA and MDiv, from accredited institutions, and in the case of the more senior priests, had had credible careers in The Episcopal Church. The two more senior were pushed out by Stephen Strawn and Anthony Morello, who had neither, and anyone the ACA has brought in, or appears to be considering, is nowhere near the level of Kelley, Ledbetter, or Bartus.

This applies equally to the major "journalist" covering the Continuum, David Virtue, "DD". As I was questioning his qualifications the other week, someone suggested I look into a place in Florida called Laud Hall. This is an unaccredited institution that, according to its website, offers "non-residential mode" (i.e., mail order), low tuition, and user-friendly lesson plans and examinations. Whew! And they say the Ivy League is overrated! Diploma, Master’s and Doctoral Degrees available!

I'm told that "Dr" Virtue has some connection with this place. This is what we're dealing with, folks. One hand is washing the other throughout this sorry mess -- no wonder Virtue treats the likes of Morello and Marsh with such respect.

There's A Resume Posted For An Anglican Priest Who's On The Job Market

here. As it happens, some guy with the same name and background had an e-mail exchange with me over the past weekend. He appears to have been closely associated with the late lamented Anthony Morello via the Philippine Independent Church and various positions at St Luke's Episcopal Mission, Fontana, CA (from which Morello was eventually removed by Bishop Borsch).

He lists both a BA in Pastoral Studies and an MDiv from St Dunstan's School of Theology, Merrilville, Indiana USA (he spells "Merrilville" differently in two places). I can find no web listing for a St Dunstan's School of Theology; I can find only one other reference online, an ACC bishop who also claims a degree from that institution. I assume it is not accredited, if it exists at all. If anyone has any info about it, I'd appreciate hearing it.

I simply don't know if the Very Rev Fr Barlow has formally applied to be rector or interim at St Mary of the Angels, though from internal evidence in the e-mails he sent me, it appears that he's heard specific details of issues and personnel there that came from a source other than me. His job history suggests he's often on the market, listing somewhat shaky qualifications.

In any case, he appears to be an example of the applicant pool for St Mary's. The job of Mrs Bush and Brian Marsh will be to identify someone desperate enough to ask no questions and do precisely as he's told.

But What About The Ordinariate?

I've had several replies to yesterday's post, expressing various levels of optimism over whether St Mary of the Angels can ever go into the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. The first question, of course, is how the case of the elected vestry and wardens, and the rector, turns out on appeal. (If the Anglican cleric who e-mailed me over the weekend does anything at all before the appeal is decided, of course, he will be a fool, but my estimate of the man's intelligence isn't all that high.)

Whether the Ordinariate would then look favorably on the parish's renewed application if the appeal went in its favor is still an open question. The opinion has been expressed that the Ordinariate might no longer be interested in St Mary's, and that position strikes me as at least realistic.

My wife and I began regularly attending St Mary of the Angels during 2011 entirely on the basis that it would go into the Ordinariate. Fr Kelley is an erudite and inspiring priest, but the likelihood that the parish would not be just a Continuum offshoot was the deciding factor for us. During 2011, several Anglo-Catholic blogs looked forward enthusiastically to the Ordinariate's erection, and a list of parishes that had expressed interest in going in grew to more than 60.

Frankly, the Ordinariate hasn't turned out that way. The enthusiastic Anglo-Catholic blogs first began to express reservations about the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in-group that was running the show, then, apparently on orders from above, went completely silent. The Ordinariate stopped returning phone calls from good and sincere priests who'd expected to be ordained as Catholics, with no rhyme or reason: Fr Seraiah was ordained a Catholic priest in the Ordinariate despite having no parish; others were not, with no explanation. (While vocations are up, there continues to be a shortage of Catholic priests; I'm sure bishops could find a use for additional supply priests in any diocese.)

The current list of parishes on the Ordinariate web site numbers 25 in the US and Canada, far from the 60-plus that had been envisioned in just the US. My own view is that, had St Mary's been received into the Ordinariate in early 2012, we would have gone into a Catholic backwater that would almost immediately have grown stagnant. My wife and I decided that for ourselves, it was important not to delay becoming Catholic, and we took the alternate route of the RCIA program at our local Catholic parish.

Given the continuing uncertainty surrounding St Mary's and the picture we're increasingly getting of the Ordinariate, this turns out to have been the best decision for us. I look back on an adult forum conducted by the then-Curate at St Mary's during the spring of 2011, in which he was explaining the intent of the Ordinariate (the Curate was in fact a favored member of the Fort Worth in-group and is now a Catholic priest with an Ordinariate parish): he said, with no apology (and apparently no sense of shame) that the Ordinariate was meant for "white people". (Yup.)

At Our Mother of Good Counsel, we exchange the peace during mass with all of God's people; in Hollywood, that's just about everyone. Andrew Bartus can have the Ordinariate.