Three Groups Not Listed

A visitor notes,

[T]here are [three] relatively small groups north of the border with "push pins" on the new map that don't appear on the old map -- one in Edmonton, Alberta, under the lay leadership of Mr. David Skelton (who apparently has deferred his Catholic ordination indefinitely due to a marital issue) and the other in [Fredericton], New Brunswick, under the leadership of Fr. Richard Harris (who, IIRC, received ordination as a Catholic presbyter in the last few months). There [is also] a group in Tyendinaga, Ontario, that might still be in the process of reception.

This would bring the total closer to the 42 claimed, making observers aware of 40, although I'm not sure how the official standing of such groups-in-formation is recognized. Clearly it would be better if the project of publicizing such groups could be undertaken by people other than amateur lay observers, fun as the project can be for those of us who do it!

My correspondent notes the Spanish-speaking group in formation that was received in 2015 in Flushing, NY. However, the impression I have from the diocesan announcement is that while a former Anglican priest brought them together, he passed away unexpectedly in 2014, and their catechesis and reception were completed under the auspices of RCIA, making them members of the diocesan parish.

Naturally, I solicit and welcome all such additions, corrections, and clarifications. The push pin in the new map in Northern California is still unexplained.

UPDATE: Another visitor adds,

Dr Skelton certainly has no "marital" issue. His ordination was announced, then cancelled shortly before the scheduled date owing to unspecified "health issues." . . . Seven people including two ACCC clergy were received when this group was erected, and although there was briefly a family which joined them and made their house chapel available they have since moved away. A former Anglican, now Catholic priest offers mass for them at a Knights of Columbus chapel but when/if he is no longer able to do this I am sure the group will fold. Fr Harris, in New Brunswick, is 76 and despite his wish to "grow" the group of perhaps ten after his ordination last year, I see no evidence of that. [A web page giving mass times at Our Lady of Fatima is here.] The group of twelve in Tyendinaga was received in 2012. You can read about it here. Their leader, Gerard Trinque, was rejected for ordination for delict of schism, but a local diocesan priest celebrates mass for them once a month. The other Sundays Mr Trinque leads a sort of "Deacon's mass" with Holy Communion. The group advertises on the reserve (Tyendinaga is a First Nations community) where Mr Trinque is described as Fr Trinque. [The group does not have a website.]

It's plain that the farther we get into the smaller groups, the more uncertain matters become. I suspect there's a great deal for Bp-Elect Lopes to learn.

Many thanks to my correspondents for their continued sleuthing!

Discrepancies?

A visitor seems to be still reviewing the current state of groups and parishes in the US-Canadian Ordinariate. I know one new discrepancy has come to his attention, but I also began to think again about an old one: the received official numbers from Houston appeared again in the National Catholic Register last month:

The North-American ordinariate Bishop-elect Lopez [sic] will lead consists of 42 parishes with approximately 70 ordained priests and deacons serving Catholics with Anglican traditions in 30 states and Canadian provinces.

However, a count just now of the parishes and groups on the parish finder of the OCSP web site yields 38 -- except that the parish finder has been out of date for many months and still lists the two Philadelphia groups separately, when they are now a single St John the Baptist parish, so at best, the evidence we have suggests 37, except that a new group in suburban Houston may bring the total back to 38. I once sent the OCSP press flack a question asking which groups of the 42 were left off the parish finder, but I got the standard nothing in reply.

Beyond that, there's a new and different parish map elsewhere on the OCSP web site that, at minimum, shows a group in the Sacramento, CA area (or perhaps the Roseville-Auburn area to the northeast). Neither my visitor nor I has heard anything about such a group, and I'm wondering if it might represent some candidate group, possibly an ACA parish, that briefly considered joining the OCSP but never followed through.

But here's a question: it sounds like Bp-Elect Lopes is already putting together the visitation schedule for his announced airplane time for the coming year. If there are so many maybes or sorta-kindas -- 10%, after all -- how does he know where to go? I hate to say this, but if I were Lopes, I'd want a definite current list from Fr Hough III. Names, mass times and places, phones, e-mails. I'd expect that Fr Hough III be able to print this off his desktop in a matter or minutes, if not seconds.

Does such a list exist? I have a feeling not. So what does Hough III do all day?

So What Will Bp-Elect Lopes See?

A visitor has been studying the revised website for the US-Canadian Ordinariate. He comments,

I have been looking over the updated parish map on the OCSP website and speculating about Bp Lopes' upcoming travels. Starting in your own state, as you perhaps know the Bl John Henry Newman Facebook page does not give us much indication of any parish events or activities beyond Mass, although there will be a Pancake Supper on Shrove Tuesday. There does seem to be a men's group meeting for "smokes and whiskey" next Saturday, and there is a women's group which had a "Ladies' Tea" last month, and a Knights of Columbus group in formation. The Facebook page deals mainly with diocesan groups: Theology on Tap and Catholics at Work, OC. The size of the BlJHN worship space does not suggest exponential growth.

The priest in charge of St Augustine's, Carlsbad has as we know been trying to retire for over a year to devote himself to diocesan chaplaincy work. But the ordination of Mr Glenn [Baaten], whose sketchy Anglican credentials we have examined in the past, seems to have been on hold since he arrived at St Augustine's last September, and in the meantime the St Augustine's website has not changed since January of last year. The Facebook page was updated in December 2015 but does not provide evidence of an active community. The new map shows a third community. But when one clicks on it one goes back to the old and hopelessly outdated list. I intend to work my way through the roster. My gut is that there are ten or fifteen OCSP groups that are going concerns and the rest are in various states of stasis or decline.

Smokes and whiskey, those of us who were at St Mary's in 2011 will recall, were Andy Bartus's favored fellowship activities then, too. One more time -- I have simply never seen a parish in any denomination feature alcohol so prominently in its publicity, which the Irvine group clearly continues to do. So far, the Ordinariate's official response has been to tell me to shut up about it.

Perhaps Andy could invite the Bishop to share some whiskey and cigars with the League of Ordinary Gentlemen when he arrives. No doubt he'll be impressed!

I'd also be interested in the interview the Bishop will no doubt wish to have with Mr Baaten, focusing on his extensive experience as an Anglican priest a Presbyterian pastor. Let's recall that Mr Baaten's ordination (not just to the diaconate, but to the priesthood) was originally scheduled for last year. I suspect that at some early point in the process, this arose as an issue to be reviewed by someone other than Msgr Steenson.

Bp Lopes will no doubt have a most interesting series of visits in coming months.

Head Fake?

A visitor commented on yesterday's post:

Whatever his gifts, and I have no reason to doubt your assessment of them, Mr Moyer would not have been a possible choice for Ordinary given his history of litigation against TEC. It would have been a total poke in the eye to that body. I am not sure that his attempt to hold positions in TEC and the ACA simultaneously would have borne the close scrutiny of the Vatican either. I can see why Msgr Steenson might have stabbed him in the back over his votum but I do not think that he feared at any point that Moyer was a rival for the post of Ordinary.

Naturally, we'll never know what may have been in Msgr Steenson's heart. On the other hand, we do have a visual from 2011 that shows how Moyer was at least useful:

In response to an invitation by His Eminence, Donald Cardinal Wuerl (Delegate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the Implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus in the United States, and Chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for the Implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus), Bishop David Moyer (A.C.A. Bishop in charge of the Patrimony of the Primate) was received by Cardinal Wuerl this afternoon [May 13, 2011] in Washington, D.C. The meeting between Cardinal Wuerl and Bishop Moyer also was attended by Fr. Scott Hurd.

Fr Hurd, a married Anglican Use priest, was Steenson's Vicar General until 2014. But note that, although Cardinal Wuerl and Fr Hurd were at the meeting, Jeffrey Steenson was nowhere to be found. We must assume, though, that, since he'd attended the 1993 meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger, Steenson was nevertheless the inside-track candidate for US Ordinary from the time Ratzinger was elevated to the Papacy. This 2011 meeting probably fed speculation in the Anglo-Catholic blogosphere that Moyer could be in line for Ordinary.

For whatever reason, Steenson maintained an extremely low profile for several years leading up to his designation as Ordinary. His own account of the process leading to his 2007 resignation as TEC bishop indicates the great pains Msgr William Stetson and he took to avoid provoking Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and maintain her good will. No doubt it would have been a "total poke in the eye" to have done anything else -- but it would appear that setting Moyer up for a similar provocation, with either the ACA or TEC, wasn't out of bounds.

In May 2011, Cardinal Wuerl accorded Moyer remarkable public courtesy. In January 2012, Msgr Steenson threw him under the bus. I agree with the former TEC priest who warned Fr Kelley to watch out for these people.

If Bp-Elect Lopes wants to effect any significant changes, he needs to reconsider the way Houston operates. There was only one of the original Twelve Apostles who operated this way, but he was replaced.

What Could Have Been Done Differently?

It occurred to me over the weekend that the St Mary's reception into the US-Canadian Ordinariate was originally scheduled for January 8, 2012, a little over four years ago. I think it's fair to say that over the following months, Houston spectacularly bungled the job. It's worth pointing out that in 2011, St Mary of the Angels was generally thought to be indicative of the dilemma faced by conservative Anglo-Catholic parishes, and its presumptive entry to the Ordinariate was thought to be historically significant.

Looking back, I'm struck by the complete lack of realistic planning. The Ordinariate wouldn't officially start until January 1, 2012, and Msgr Steenson hadn't been officially designated as Ordinary. As a result, the parish's contact with Catholic authorities was Msgr William Stetson, who was reduced to making coy statements like, "I don't know who the Ordinary will be, but I know his calendar is open for January 8." I should have been more skeptical, but after all, this was the Catholic Church. They knew what they were doing, didn't they?

A second issue was that nobody in charge seemed to be aware of the whole situation, in particular that the ACA was, during this time, actively working to seize the parish. The dissidents had scheduled a meeting with Stephen Strawn for the following week, which was averted only when David Moyer, still theoretically Bishop of the Patrimony, shooed him away. In response, the ACA House of Bishops voted to dissolve the Patrimony. Hindsight says they did this for the sole reason of making it easier to seize St Mary's. It doesn't appear that either Msgr Stetson or Msgr Steenson had a clue about what was going on.

David Moyer, of course, did. In fact, he was probably the only functioning adult involved in the process at that point; Steenson's fecklessness was already making itself plain. A couple of weeks after the ACA bishops dissolved the Patrimony, Archbishop of Philadelphia Chaput denied Moyer his votum, blocking his entry to the Ordinariate as a priest. When this happened, there was wide speculation on whether Jeffrey Steenson was involved in the move.

Whatever the specifics may have been, it's worth noting that Moyer was the only other former Anglican bishop who would have been in the running for Ordinary besides Steenson, and speculation in the runup certainly mentioned Moyer as a candidate. Edging Moyer out was the best possible move both for Steenson and the ACA. Steenson, advised by an apparently incompetent chancellor, dithered, requesting another vote from the parish (which had already voted on the topic twice). This uncertainty and lack of leadership simply encouraged the ACA and the parish dissidents to keep going.

My own view is that the one individual who had the best knowledge of all the players, both in the ACA and the St Mary's parish, was David Moyer. With him out of the picture, it appears that the most knowledgeable figure was Andrew Bartus, then still St Mary's curate, who met frequently with the parish dissidents and had back-channel contacts to the Houston in-group. His objective appears to have been to knock Fr Kelley out of the running via back-channel character assassination and become pastor of the St Mary's parish when it entered the Ordinariate. He bungled this job, of course.

I've heard at third hand that, while still Ordinary, Msgr Steenson complained to colleagues at bishops' conferences that he was hobbled by incompetent subordinates. My reaction is that he chose to surround himself with the subordinates he had, and if I were handicapping corporate politics the same way, I would have said David Moyer, qualified to serve as Ordinary with episcopal experience and displaying competence and effective leadership, was too much of a threat to Steenson to have him around. I certainly agree with observers who feel that a major task for Bp-Elect Lopes will be to sift through the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth-Nashotah House old boy network he's inherited.

For the Ordinariate to leave behind the air of disappointment that's surrounded it from the start and regain the promise that observers saw in 2011, it will need to reexamine the mistakes that were made in early 2012 and make it a priority to remedy the St Mary of the Angels debacle. Please continue to pray for Fr Kelley, the vestry, and the parish.

Reactions To TEC Suspension At Canterbury

This development is only very tangentially related to the purpose of this blog, except that this post, on a blog speaking for a very tiny "continuing" splinter group, makes the point,

That the Global South primates have won a kind of victory is a step in the right direction, but only a step in a long journey. Many of us in Continuing churches know that this is approximately forty years later than it should have been. We know also that the Archbishop of Canterbury, then Donald Coggan, would have made all things better by recognizing the Denver Consecrations in 1978. The presence of ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach at the primates meeting this past week is good in one sense, but it also drives home the propaganda that we need to resist; namely that only now has a genuine Anglican alternative to TEC arisen. That notion has been presented only in an implied sense, but it is strongly implied at our expense, though it has never been true at all.

So OK, the main guy consecrated in Denver was James Mote. He in turn consecrated Louis Falk and then fairly quickly withdrew from active involvement in the "continuing" movement, leaving things as they developed to Falk and Falk's adversaries. Falk in turn consecrated -- well, let's look at just some on the list, Robin Connors, Stephen Strawn, Brian Marsh -- a disreputable bunch indeed. I recently heard from a conservative-leaning former TEC priest who basically said there were grounds for complaint against the US-Canadian Ordinariate and for that matter, the ACA -- and in comparison, the very liberal TEC Bishop of Los Angeles J Jon Bruno actually comes off well.

But then, I've heard from former members of the St Mary of the Angels parish who, while they have good wishes for it, chose to remain Episcopalian. Frankly, there are only two real options for Episcopalians. Either become Catholic, but considering the overall disappointment in the Ordinariates, probably not via Anglicanorum coetibus, or remain Episcopalian. A distant option might be, if an Episcopal parish is not convenient but an ACNA parish is, the ACNA.

Those who go with any "continuing" denomination are submitting themselves to charlatans and thieves.

What Now For The Parish?

The indications I've had over the past several weeks have been that my wife and I are correct in estimating that the Bush-ACA squatters can delay things a few days here, a week or two there, but the case is reaching its end stages. I've had some inquiries from visitors about what can happen now.

There's a great deal we don't know about parish finances. Daren Williams, the last ACA Bishop of the West (who had earlier made an astute call in inhibiting Andrew Bartus when he was an ACA deacon) also raised concerns about the individual who had been the longtime St Mary's parish treasurer as of 2010. Apparently the treasurer was elderly and in poor health, unwilling to learn to use a computer, and the bishop was concerned about some other irregularity and ordered that Fr Kelley replace him. The replacement lasted only a few months and does not appear to have been up to the job.

I was brought in after that and began to clean things up, paying bills that had gone unpaid for many months. However, the Bush insurgents forced me out after a couple of months, deciding that the parish didn't need a treasurer after all(!). This appears to have been related to the scheme not to remit quarterly withholding payments to the IRS -- the last straw for them was when, worried about where the IRS payments had gone, I proposed the parish hire a payroll firm that would make sure this was properly handled.

Once the Bush-ACA group took over, they put the nonagenarian former longtime treasurer back in that position. If ACA Bishop Daren Williams had had concerns about this gentleman in 2010, I've got to think there may be reason for continued concern now. The squatters lost nearly all parish income in October 2015, yet somehow they're still paying utilities, presumably paying Lancaster & Anastasia LLP, and presumably keeping Bishop Owen Williams in his apartment. A major task that will face the vestry will be finding out what the parish's financial situation is, and frankly, I'd be looking for irregularities.

The other matter visitors ask me about is what the parish's future is with the US-Canadian Ordinariate. A week or so ago, I speculated that we don't know the atmosphere in Houston regarding the parish's possible admission. Since then, I'm informed that Fr Kelley has received a warning that can only be characterized as dire -- the atmosphere in Houston is not currently favorable to anything connected with St Mary of the Angels.

One reason I began this blog -- which is certainly not popular in official circles, either with the ACA or the US-Canadian Ordinariate -- was to bear witness to the truth and bear witness to an injustice, both of which are part of Christians' responsibility. I believe Fr Kelley, the parish vestry, and the loyal parishioners have been systematically defamed, in part by individuals currently in good favor with Houston.

My own feeling is that Bp-Elect Lopes will probably need to conduct his own very thorough review of the stewardship by the existing OCSP in-group, and a serious part of that review should include the circumstances surrounding the St Mary of the Angels parish in 2011-12. If he doesn't do this, I don't believe he will be doing his duty as bishop -- but in recent decades, we've had no shortage of bishops who've fallen short of their duty. We'll have to see how things play out.

Please continue to pray for Fr Kelley, the vestry, and the parish.