Sunday, May 31, 2015

I Hate To Say It, But This Is Awful

I hadn’t been following the issues related to Ordnariate liturgy, as I’m not an Ordinariate member and unlikely to attend an Ordinariate mass in the foreseeable future. But beyond that, there's been remarkably little said on blogs -- we have Fr Hawkins's remarks from February of this year disparaging the deliberate archaism in the Ordinariate mass rite. We have a report of an address by Msgr Steenson to the Anglican Use Society in November 2012 regarding the impending updates to the Book of Divine Worship, including the announcement that "this revision will include only the Rite I services; congregations wishing to use contemporary language are directed to use the Roman Missal, third edition, in the translation released in 2011."

A year later, we received the semi-official version of the Ordinariate Eucharisitic rite, via a post on The Anglican Use Of The Roman Rite Blog.

With the new Eucharistic rite's inauguration, the material in the Book of Divine Worship which remains normative has been further reduced. The funeral and marriage rites had been previously supplanted, as had Rite II of the Eucharist. All that remains as normative are the Daily Office, the Litany and Baptism. Doubtless, the Baptismal rite will be the next to be revised and published. I doubt we will see much change in the Litany, and so it remains to be seen what changes will come to the Daily Office.
Remarkably, there is only one comment to the post: "Thank you. I am much relieved after scanning through it and am glad for the consistency of style in the Tudor English. I had heard it was a 'hodgepodge' of Tudor/modern English." This reminds me a little of the brouhaha in the Los Angeles Zoo, wherein an African and an Indian elephant, who had been caged together for many years and had grown attached to each other, were separated due to the fact that African and Indian elephants do not occur together in the wild. I suspect the commenter would rejoice at that news as well.

A full analysis of the differences between the 2003 Book of Divine Worship and the 2013 approved Eucharistic rite is here. I don't know if the irony of presenting it 90-degrees out of kilter is intentional or not.

The bottom line is that if you don't want an antiquarian exercise, authentic to 1662, lasting upwards of two hours on a Sunday, you'd best hie yourself to a diocesan parish.

I'm puzzled. The 2003 BDW, in good Anglican form, continued to provide a Rite One and a Rite Two in the spirit of the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, with Rite Two reflecting well-rendered comtemporary language. I assume Msgr Steenson and the other intimates from the Episcopal Diocese of Forth Worth were OK with this, since their careers prospered pretty much with its introduction. Yet now we're left with Rite One alone -- which might satisfy devotees of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, a key fetish of "continuing Anglicans" -- but even the 1928 rite has been archaized.

Well, one rationale for Anglicanorum coetibus was to bring the gifts of the "Anglican patrimony" to the Roman Church -- fine. But Anglicanism didn't stop in 1662. Languages evolve. Nobody not involved in post-doctoral study wants to read Paradise Lost in its original orthography. That was part of the reasoning behind Vatican II, and Msgr Steenson himself has said he wouldn't have become Catholic had it not been for Vatican II. (Nor, though, would he have become Catholic had not Cardinal Law put his name up for Ordinary.)

I hadn't been paying attention. Whew.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

More Trial Delays

I'm told that Judge Strobel will be serving on the appeals court for another month, and the projected trial date for the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases has been moved back, with a hearing to set the date for a new trial scheduled for September 9.

I wonder, in fact, if the legal uncertainty over the control of the parish is behind the bank's apparent plan to move. The Kelleys, the parish, and the elected vestry continue in my prayers.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

What, After All, Is The Purpose Of Ordinariates?

There are a couple of posts at Ordinariate News, (here and here) suggesting, first, that some inchoate need exists among Anglo-Catholics that could be filled by reconstituting the Anglican Use Society, and second, that in the UK, there's not enough to distinguish Ordinariate parishes from Latin-rite parishes, especially when the Latin parishes host Ordinariate groups.

I'm a little puzzled that an announcement should be made of reconstituting the Anglican Use Society, followed immediately by a call for suggestions on what it might do with its reconstituted self. I've certainly heard the suggestion that the AUS is re-emerging due to unspecified dissatisfaction with the leadership of the US-Canadian Ordinariate -- although I'm not sure that, if in fact this is a factor, anything can seriously be done. Msgr Steenson is 63. He will not be obliged to submit his resignation until he is 75, although the Vatican could certainly choose to retain his services after 2028. He would not be replaced short of that date without some serious allegation of misconduct. Ain't gonna happen, even if the Anglican Use Society should eventually offer remonstrances.

At the same time, a UK commentator notes,

In cases where those groups who used the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite as Anglicans have experimented with the Ordinariate Use, they have found that a number of their group members have voted with their feet and started to go to Mass in a diocesan parish. The Ordinariate Use may be part of what distinguishes the Ordinariate and the liturgy may be particularly suited to special occasions like an Ordinariate pilgrimage or festival, the titular solemnity or another major feast day, but most groups feel more comfortable with the Ordinary Form as their regular Mass liturgy on weekdays and most Sundays. So one can fairly say that the Ordo Missae is therefore not the main distinctive feature of the Ordinariate in Britain.
This seems to echo the viewpoints in my last post on God-wottery. A visitor with experience at two Anglican Use/now Ordinariate parishes notes that, given the choice of driving a greater distance to get threefold repetitions, genuflections, and multiple kissings of the altar, or not traveling as far to get a mass that lasts no more than an hour, his preferences align with many communicants in the UK Ordinariate -- it's fine for special occasions, but. . .

Add to this my continued concern that the US-Canadian Ordinariate resembles "continuing Anglicanism" all too closely, not only in privileging a liturgy that doesn't appear to be all that popular among the rank and file, but also in what appears to be the opportunism among its clergy, including a disturbing tendency to ordain (or intend to ordain) candidates whose connections in Houston might be good but whose qualifications are, frankly, open to question.

Look, on the other hand, at the sort of issues that actually confront Catholics.

A senior Vatican official has attacked the legalisation of gay marriage in Ireland. The referendum that overwhelmingly backed marriage equality last weekend was a “defeat for humanity”, he claimed. . . .

It was a far more critical response than the circumspect reaction offered by archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, who said: “It is very clear that if this referendum is an affirmation of the views of young people … [then the church needs] a reality check.”

Meanwhile, the Anglican Use Society is asking for suggestions on what to do.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

God-Wottery

I had an e-mail over the weekend from a visitor who raised again for me some questions that first appeared in a blog entry by Fr Allan Hawkins, the now-retired pastor of the St Mary the Virgin parish, Arlington, TX. The visitor told me that he was formerly a member of that parish, so Fr Hawkins may have had some influence on him as well. In the blog post, Fr Hawkins expresses a preference for Rite Two of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer over the more Cranmerian version in Rite One:
Monsignor Edwin Barnes, in his blog entry of November 29, 2014, refers to what he calls the American “God-wottery” of the Ordinariate Use. (Helpfully, he adds an explanation: “God-wottery” is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as ‘an affected quality of archaism, excessive fussiness and sentimentality’.) And Father Barnes adds that these are the very things that many English members of the Ordinariate, who have grown up with contemporary rites over a couple of generations now, find so unhelpful.

He refers to what he calls the excessive fussiness of the three-fold repetition of “Lord, I am not worthy …”. And why, Fr. Barnes asks, has the Ordinariate rite (re)-introduced the celebrant’s multiple kissings of the altar?

My impression (admittedly as an outsider) of the US-Canadian Ordinariate is that it is heavily influenced by "continuing Anglicanism", which fetishizes the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. And there was indeed considerable "archaism, excessive fussiness and sentimentality" among the core group of St Mary's troublemakers. But nobody among God-wotters needs to become Catholic, and I think this is part of the tension that broke up the parish. As I've observed, three-fold repetitions are plenty for those who simply want to overcompensate for other lacunae in their religious observance. The obligation to confess such lacunae sacramentally is far more than they wish to have.

Interestingly, my correspondent mentioned that he now sometimes attends an Ordinariate mass at a different, though large and successful, parish -- except that, well, there are Latin-rite parishes between his home and the Ordinariate one, and, well, it's often easier to make the Latin-rite masses of a Sunday. And the Latin-rite ones are guaranteed to last exactly an hour, and there's none of the threefold stuff.

When I was an Episcopalian, the parishes I attended were often proud of the fact that parishioners would pass by other, closer Episcopal parishes to worship there. Doesn't sound like even the most successful Ordinariate parishes necessarily have the same draw. God-wottery, frankly, is a tough sell. Fr Hawkins concluded his post with the observation,

There will surely be only few more Anglicans still looking for a congenial home in communion with Peter. Thus there is, I am convinced, a real danger that it could swiftly become nothing more than a liturgical museum – of interest only to a dwindling esoteric band.
I like the Ordinary Form, I'm coming to recognize, because it's so much like Rite Two.

Friday, May 22, 2015

The Money

My wife was doing business at the Citibank branch that's located on the corner of Finley and Hillhurst -- this is the rental property owned by the St Mary of the Angels parish. We have a couple of accounts there, and a teller told my wife that the branch would be moving farther down Hillhurst later this year. I don't remember when the lease was up -- the bank would be obligated to pay rent thourgh the end of the lease, but it the lease is up this year, that means no rent from the bank after that time.

Monthly rental income to the parish from the bank was a little less than $21,000. Monthly income from all other sources, including plate and pledge, was about $7500. This alone would cover only utilities, insurance, and various miscellaneous expenses -- it would not cover any payroll costs, including clergy, organist, choir, or housekeeping. In other words, the parish will need to line up another tenant in a hurry. It doesn't help that the question of who the landlord would be is tied up in the courts.

Unfortunately, throughout its modern history, the parish has in effect been living off the "trust fund" that Fr Dodd set up for it. At one time, I'm told, it was the wealthiest Episcopal parish in the diocese. Three separate cycles of lawsuits have depleted that. My impression is that the group of long-term parishioners who were the core troublemakers never wanted to wake up to the fact that the money was gone, and there would need to be serious fundraising if the parish was to survive -- didn't matter to them, they were in their 70s and 80s anyhow. In fact, most of them didn't even pledge, ignoring the fact that you had to pledge to qualify for the vestry.

During my brief time as treasurer, I got on Fr Kelley's case about this. Apparently the core group had laid down the law to him when he started -- there was to be no silliness over pledging, it disturbed the serenity of the high-church atmosphere, or something like that. When I met with the parish's new accountant, he told me what I already knew: relying on the rental income was utterly imprudent. Banks merge all the time, they move and close branches every day. You can't count on that money.

Sources close to the elected vestry tell me that the loss of the tenant could be an inducement for the dissidents to let go of the place more willingly. I certainly don't have the impression that a bunch of inward-looking snobs has any real interest in the real-world problems of running a parish.

My wife, though, has always been of the view that the ultimate fate of St Mary's will be to become a secular Museum of Culture, perhaps with Mmes Bush and Brandt as docents.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Regarding Shrinkage,

an anonymous visitor raises the following, slightly edited:
As we noted , the St John Fisher community website was all about Fr Sly. Whether that was a cause or a symptom of the group's failure to grow, it was inevitable that it would not survive his departure. I would imagine that there are at least another dozen US-Canadian groups that will fold when their pastor dies or retires, usually because they have not grown beyond an elderly remnant of his former ACCC/ACA parishioners. Succession planning is also difficult even for larger, more viable groups. Unlike the UK Ordinariate, the US-Canadian Ordinariate has drawn almost no one directly from mainstream Anglicanism. Surely the supply of candidates from the "continuing" alphabet soup is drying up, and as for celibate seminarians, good luck. Even the large and successful Texas former and current Pastoral Provision congregations have not produced candidates for ordination in their several decades of existence, perhaps because there was no celibate parish priest to model that vocation in a positive way. An organisation made up entirely of retreads faces fundamental difficulties.
This brings up a bigger question that I'm only starting to get my head around. The basic assumption behind the 1993 meeting between Pope-Steenson and Cardinal Ratzinger was that as many as 250,000 US Episcopalians (25% of the denomination) were prepared to leave in a bunch and go over to a special dispensation to be set up by Rome. The reasons for their disaffection were essentially the same as the reasons behind the St Louis Affirmation of 1977, which led to the "continuing Anglican" movement. However, the one diligent study of Episcopal disaffection, Douglas Bess's Divided We Stand, draws one big conclusion: the actual numbers have never matched the wildly exaggerated projections, and TEC never notices the departures. In this sense, the US-Canadian Ordinariate has simply repeated the pattern of the 1970s and 80s.

There's another pattern that's been creeping into my thinking: Jeffrey Steenson simply isn't the first renegade Episcopal bishop: that honor, as far as I can see, belongs to James A. Pike. Other Episcopal bishops have certainly been controversial and even in some cases subject to trial or discipline, including John Spong, Charles Bennison, and Eugene Robinson. But none of those specifically abrogated their vows, and as far as I'm aware, all retired still able to exercise priestly functions. Pike resigned as bishop and was subsequently de facto deposed by his successor; in his subsequent public career, Pike advocated against Christian doctrines.

Steenson, as far as I can see, is closer to Pike than any other Episcopal bishop, at least in the specifics of his career. Although he and Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori were careful to ease him out with a minimum of public disturbance (unlike that with Pike), Steenson resigned as bishop and left the denomination, presumably no longer able to exercise priestly functions within it, however politely this may have been finessed. I've commented before on the tone of self-absorption that can be seen in his resignation letter. (In fact, revisiting that post, I'm struck by the similarity between Steenson's remark, "An effective leader cannot be so conflicted about the guiding principles of the Church he serves" and Pike's statement at the time of his 1965 resignation that he "cannot be twins".)

Neither "continuing Anglicanism" nor the example of James Pike strikes me as a recipe for success. What's beginning to bother me about the whole idea of Ordinariates (something Steenson was involved with proposing from the start) is simply the presence of conflicting jurisdictions. The Anglican Use Pastoral Provision involved a sympathetic diocesan applying consistent policies across a diocese. The Ordinariates involve designating clergy with radically different backgrounds (as well as mostly being married) from diocesan priests, under different expectations, in a situation that can potentially be exploited, with ambitious self-promoters able to play the diocesans off against the Ordinary and vice versa.

Like my anonymous visitor, I'm less and less comfortable with what I'm seeing.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Shrinkage

The St Mary's dissidents may have updated their calendar, but that for the neighboring ACA parish, All Saints Fountain Valley, CA, still carries the schedule for Holy Week. Interestingly, the schedule for Easter Sunday lists only "Festal Morning Prayer" at 9:30 AM, which suggests they're having some difficulty lining up supply priests. It doesn't appear that they have had a regular priest to say mass since Robert W. Bowman left, after I pointed out his child pornography arrest. (The parish was slow to act, and I finally notified Fountain Valley police of the situation, after which it appears to have been cleared up.)

Looking at the ACA Diocese of the West generally, it lists a parish and a mission in Arizona, four parishes and a mission in California, a parish in Oregon, and a mission in Montana. The missions seem iffy indeed. All Saints Fountain Valley has not had a rector since the death of Anthony Morello more than two years ago, and it seems to have difficulty finding even supply priests. St Mary of the Angels is very much up in the air, with the results of the legal appeal suggesting control will revert to the elected vestry in August of this year. At that point, the ACA Diocese of the West will be down to five parishes in three states, the status of the missions very much in question. This will probably still be too much for "Bishop" Williams to handle.

Meanwhile, the St John Fisher Ordinariate community in Potomac Falls, VA will merge with the St Luke's parish in DC. As far as I can see, this amounts to a reduction in the total number of Ordinariate communities.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The St Mary's Dissidents Finally Updated Their Web Site

Pentecost finally appears on the calendar, although the Diocese of the West still has an inexplicable presence in Alaska.

The problem of unmaintained web sites is not limited to Mrs Bush and her minions. A commenter recently noted at Ordinariate News, with an unaccustomed tone of exasperation,

In particular, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter needs to give priority to keeping its web site current. It should not take more than a few minutes to update the listing of a community or to add a listing of a new community.
It seems to me that the subliminal message being sent, whether by the shade of Anthony Morello, Mrs Bush and her friends, or Msgr Steenson, is that we don't need to be concerned with outsiders. These are thoroughly inward-focused organizations.

Monday, May 18, 2015

More Catholic Than The USCCB

There has been a minor flap at Ordinariate News (also in the comments here) regarding the apparent (but who knows for sure?) policy of the US-Canadian and UK Ordinariates to treat Ascension Thursday as a Holy Day of Obligation. A discussion of the most prevalent policy, at least in the US, is here.

My head hurts. Naturally, if I miss mass on a holy day of obligation, I've sinned. I'm not sure, though -- if I'd been traveling last week and found myself in Philadelphia on May 14, would I have sinned if I didn't go to mass that day in Philadelphia, but returned to LA in time to attend mass on the day it's transferred here, May 17? And because my baptismal certificate has gone south, I'm not yet registered in my diocese. I'm not sure if Frs M or D would have been confident of my status if I confessed it to them -- they'd probably have absolved me of all my sins anyhow (possibly with a chuckle), whether that covered this one of not. Three Our Fathers.

The problem is compounded when, as noted in the comments on the Ordinariate News threads, the policy isn't posted in any understandable way on the US-Canadian Ordinariate web site. And beyond that, when did this become Ordinariate policy? The US-Canadian one has been going for 3-1/2 years, but the issue has come up only now, as far as I can see. Was this always the policy -- in which case, do any Ordinariate members need to hie themselves to the confessional? Or has it changed more recently?

This specific issue is taking me back to a bigger problem I've come to see in the Anglo-Catholic flavor of "continuing Anglicanism", which I'm beginning to wonder is bleeding into the Ordinariate, at least in North America. I think there's a subtext among some communicants that, if they go through all the supposed liturgical supererogations, this will compensate for whatever lacunae may occur in their actual religious observance. I insist upon incense, bells, maniples, and copes -- which compensates for (fill in the blank, almost certainly a bit of grave matter). I keep thinking of the prominent St Mary of the Angels parishioner, a political operator closely associated with pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage interests, who gifted favored clergy with elaborate vestments.

It's hard enough to be a Catholo-Catholic. Why make it harder? And why cloud things all the more by communicating so poorly?

I'm less and less inclined to have anything to do with the Ordinariates, and I thank my guardian angel for keeping me from making any premature decisions about them.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Well, Today Is Ascension Sunday,

and next Sunday is Pentecost. The dissident web site for the St Mary of the Angels parish still hasn't been updated since Easter, April 5. I would think, in fact, that since Ascension Thursday was May 14, someone would have scheduled a special mass for that date, but if they did, it wasn't announced.

For that matter, the site says under "Our Diocese" that "The Diocese of the West includes parishes and missions from Alaska to the Mexican border, including Montana and Arizona." However, the ACA-DOW has belatedly acknowledged that there are no missions in Alaska, so that statement is out of date as well. (The Montana mission, though, is still as iffy as ever.)

I leave it to visitors to speculate on the reasons for this nonfeasance.

Friday, May 15, 2015

Vicar General For California Groups? -- II

I first posted on this possibility a month ago, when I seem to have been the first blogger on the Ordinariate beat to catch wind of what might be coming. Via both a post on Expatriate News and the Bl John Henry Newman newsletter, the picture seems to be getting clearer:
St Luke’s Ordinariate Community in Washington, D.C. posted on their facebook page on March 29 that:
During the (Palm Sunday) Mass, Monsignor Steenson announced that our Pastor, Father Mark Lewis, has been appointed by him as Dean (Vicar Forane) of the Eastern Deanery of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.
This is interesting news, which would seem to suggest that the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter no longer has only one Deanery, namely in Canada, but that the territory of the United States has also been divided into Deaneries.
More information on "deaneries" is available here.
A vicar forane, sometimes called a dean, is a priest appointed by the bishop in order to promote a common pastoral activity in a region of the diocese and to provide spiritual and pastoral counsel to the other priests in that region. . . . A vicariate forane is a region of the diocese over which a vicar forane exercises his office. Though these regions are sometimes referred to as “deaneries”, this term never appears in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Rather, these regions are called “vicariates” or even on occasion “districts” (cf. canon 555).
Last month, I speculated that Fr Jack Barker, a former Rector of St Mary of the Angels and currently a Catholic priest in the Diocese of San Bernardino, might be involved in the creation of a deanery involving California. An announcement from the Bishop of San Bernardino at the time indicated that Fr Barker would be leaving his position there. The Bl John Henry Newman newsletter I cited yesterday adds this informstion:
We will, however, be welcoming Fr. Jack Barker, who will be assisting with us starting July 1. He is retiring as pastor from St. Martha’s, Murrieta in June. For those who may not know, Fr. Barker was one of the very first former-Anglican priests to be ordained a Catholic priest when the Anglican Use first began. He will be offering the daily masses at 11:50 at our chapel, as well as assisting on Sundays. (Starting in July, the Wednesday mass will be an Anglican Use Low Mass!)
My understanding of the tip I received last month gave me the impression that Fr Barker could possibly become a "vicar general for California", which could well translate to Dean of a California or Western US Deanery. In that case, referring to Fr Barker as "assisting" at Bl John's could be misleading, although as I pointed out yesterday, that would not be the only misleading statement in that newsletter.

Stay tuned!

More Personnel Puzzles

Via a recent newsletter from the Blessed John Henry Newman Catholic Church in Irvine, CA, we learn
This year we anticipate the ordination of Glenn Baaten to the sacred priesthood of the Catholic Church - our first ordinand from our parish! We look forward to many more, especially as we are asked to pray for vocations. Glenn was a former Anglican priest and will be sent to our Ordinariate community of St. Augustine's in Carlsbad to relieve Fr. George Ortiz-Guzman who will serve as a hospital chaplain in San Diego.
It would be much more correct to say that Glenn was a former Presbyterian pastor. As we'll see, he appears to have been an Anglican priest for less than a year, and it doesn't appear that he had actual parish responsibilities during this time.
Born in London, Ontario, Canada, [he] spent most of his growing up years in southern California.Glenn came to his Christian faith in Jr. High school during the "Jesus Movement" which swept the country in the early '70's.After having moved around the denominational landscape a whole bunch, he felt led by the Spirit, along with his wife Cathy, to call the Presbyterian church home. . . . .Glenn has served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Harrison [Ohio] beginning August 1, 1998.
Howeveer, by 2011, he had left Ohio for Southern California, where the Spirit apparently led him to the ACNA parish St James Newport Beach. He was ordained an Anglican priest at that parish on January 30, 2013. What appears to be an entry in a St James Newport Beach newsletter quoted in the Zoominfo link above says,
The ACNA has been a Godsend to the Baatens! Glenn was first accepted as an ordinand at St. James' and subsequently was ordained as a deacon this last January [apparently 2012], along with Deacon Pete Forbes. Glenn and Cathy are excited about partnering together, along with Pete and Julie, with the formation of our new Anglican mission in Irvine.
You can find a youtube video taken during this very brief Anglican interlude of then-Deacon Baaten (on pennywhistle) and Rev. Pete Forbes (on guitar) at the St. James Anglican international fellowship dinner for the persecuted church, May 6, 2012. But his talents on the pennywhistle notwithstanding, the "new Anglican mission in Irvine" seems not to have worked out. In early May 2013, the ACNA parish St James Newport Beach was ordered to return the property to The Episcopal Church, and as a practical matter, Baaten's Anglican priesthood seems to have lasted about three months.

At some point in 2013 or 2014, he began attending the Bl John's Ordinariate group, at the time in Fullerton. By July 2014, Mr Baaten had presumably gone through the formality of resigning his briefly-held ACNA orders and had been received into the Catholic Church, as he is recorded as taking part as subdeacon in a mass celebrated by Msgr Steenson.

It appears that Mr Baaten spent most of his life either as an evangelical (part of the "Jesus Movement") or, more seriously, as a Presbyterian. There are major differences between Presbyterians and Anglicans, including the number of sacraments (Presbyterians recognize only two), the content of the liturgy (Presbyterians have no BCP), the status and definition of saints, and the use of wine in the Eucharist. There are, of course, far more differences between Presbyterian and Catholic belief.

Mr Baaten's eligibility to become a member of an Ordinariate parish at all is based on the technicality that he was in the ACNA for a brief period. Even the US Ordinariate site says, "[T]he Ordinariate was formed in response to repeated and persistent inquiries from Anglican groups who were seeking to become Catholic, and is intended for those coming from an Anglican tradition."

The speed with which these changes have taken place is also, from the perspective of my own experience, somewhat troubling. As a child, I went to church, was confirmed, and had my first grape-juice "communion" in Presbyterian parishes. It then took me a lifetime to fall away from the Church, toy with Zen Buddhism, return to the Church as an Episcopalian, move from low church to high, and eventually become Catholic. None of those stages was quick or easy. I've got to question what sort of discernment is taking place here, either in California or Houston -- if I had anything to do with vocations, I'd want to know if this fast-tracking into the Catholic priesthood was anything other than moving around the denominational landscape a whole bunch, since it is certainly at least that.

But I don't get the feeling that Houston asks these questions. As a true crime buff, I'm suspicious of whirlwind courtships, since there's almost always a hidden agenda involved. With Andy Bartus in the picture, that goes double. That he would feel the need to weasel-word Mr Baaten's background as a "former Anglican priest" only adds to the impression that things are being hidden here.

In addition, at least as of 2013, another former Anglican priest, Bill Ledbetter, with a far more credible track record in Episcopal parish work, had been expecting to be ordained into the Ordinariate himself. Since he lives in Southern California, he would presumably have been available to take over the Carlsbad group as well. Instead, Mr Baaten is apparently being fast-tracked into that job. I've tried to get in touch with Bill to see if he can provide any update or clarification, but so far, he hasn't replied to my e-mail. As of 2013, though, Bill had been relying on Andy to look after his advancement with the Houston in-group.

This isn't the first puzzling ordination (or ordination-to-be) in recent days. Fr Vaughan Treco was ordained earlier this month in order to become pastor of the St Louis Park, MN Ordinariate group. Fr Treco had never been any kind of Anglican clergyman or indeed, layman. He was ordained in the Charismatic Episcopal Church, which despite its name is not an offshoot of The Episcopal Church or any other Anglican denomination. In fact, former CEC clergy are specifically excluded for ordination as Catholics under the Pastoral Provision.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Back To Numbers

The other day, I heard over the radio a reference to a Pew Foundation study on America's Changing Religious Landscape. I'm not sure how much to read into this -- the Pew Foundation (the Pews being the Philadelphia fortune behind Sun Oil) is, like the Ford, Rockefeller, and other foundations, a staunch promoter of what might be called the PBS world view -- and I assume there are both latent and visible biases in the methodology.

Nevertheless, the report gives a snapshot of the numbers we need to put Anglicanorum coetibus in perspective.

Like mainline Protestants, Catholics appear to be declining both as a percentage of the population and in absolute numbers. The new survey indicates there are about 51 million Catholic adults in the U.S. today, roughly 3 million fewer than in 2007. But taking margins of error into account, the decline in the number of Catholic adults could be as modest as 1 million. And, unlike Protestants, who have been decreasing as a share of the U.S. public for several decades, the Catholic share of the population has been relatively stable over the long term, according to a variety of other surveys.
As I pointed out two weeks ago, 66,000 baptized Christians became Catholic during 2013, not enough to compensate for the 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 Catholics who left the Church since 2007. (Of course, if we take the higher estimate, that means the Catholic Church lost the equivalent of three whole Episcopal Churches during that period.)

The contribution of Ordinariate receptions to counterbalancing these numbers since 2012 is, of course, of no statistical significance, and likely will never be. This raises for me once more the question of whether then-Fr Steenson, with then-Bishop Clarence Pope, gave then-Cardinal Ratzinger a misleading estimate of 250,000 Episcopalians who might come over to a US Ordinariate when they proposed the ides to him in 1993.

That's the sort of number that might be at the lower end of something worth a Holy Father's time. This other that we really see, not so much.

The Pew report notes that Christian dropouts are primarily young. I've heard many times in homilies that the family, in raising children within the Church, is the primary instrument of mission. Insofar as we've seen an overall decline in stable families, the decline in Christian affiliation can probably be traced in large part to this alone.

But a huggy-bear Papal public persona clearly hasn't reversed the actual numbers.

Monday, May 11, 2015

US-Canadian Ordinariate Personnel Puzzles

My very knowledgeable anonymous source on matters Houston raises the following questions, slightly edited for format:
Last March, Fr Catania was removed as the pastor of Mt Calvary, Baltimore---the parish of which he had been rector while it was an Episcopal parish---and replaced with Fr Scharbach. He remained in the Baltimore area, however, until December 2014, when he came to Kitchener, ON to minister to the Sodality of St Edmund. He has subsequently begun travelling to Rochester NY twice a month to say mass for the St Alban's Fellowship there.

But meanwhile, another group in the Baltimore area, St Timothy's, Catonsville, has been without a priest since the reception of the group two years ago.

Fr Sly is leaving the St John Fisher group in Potomac Falls, VA, to become the parochial administrator of Our Lady Of Hope, Kansas City, MO, and no replacement has been announced. Yet a man associated with the St John Fisher group has just been ordained to lead the group in Collegeville, MN.

The communities in Kitchener and Collegeville both have about ten members.

Our Lady of Hope, Kansas City had an OCSP parish administrator. Do not know what he will be doing now; he is not at retirement age.

In the case of the communities in Kitchener and Collegeville, although they did not have an Ordinariate priest, they did have a local diocesan priest who said an Ordinariate rite mass for them every Sunday. The groups in Catonsville and Rochester have no such option, and in fact the group in Catonsville, about 45 strong originally, has been losing membership because of the unpredictability of the service schedule.

Now there may be excellent reasons for all of these staffing choices. But the changes themselves have not been officially posted by the OCSP, so we will not expect to see anything that might explain them. But I can imagine that there is a certain amount of frustration in many communities.

Nor, I would add, is this sort of issue discussed on the Ordinariate News blog, which, though useful and informative, clearly aims to put the most positive spin on events.

One of my favorite passages in the Gospels is the one about the centurion with the paralyzed servant (Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10). In it, the centurion draws on his experience in a different field to infer how things work in the Kingdom of Heaven: "For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." The Roman legions after all, were at the time an organization that functioned quite well.

On the other hand, a lot of my own experience has been with less effective organizations -- but I sometimes find myself drawing similar parallels with how things seem to go down in Houston. For a while, I worked for a company several of whose officers wound up in prison for securities fraud. I'm not implying that anyone connected with Houston is stealing anything, but I see similar patterns of dysfunction.

For instance, my former employer had a policy of totally reassigning all personnel -- or at least, all those with significant responsibilities -- every two years. So I'd be sent, say, to work on a project in St Louis, and at the desk next to mine would be a former division vice president, working with me at the same level, although naturally I'd have to train him on his new duties de novo.

Late in the game, I caught on: the purpose of this was to be sure that only a small core group knew what was really going on, although eventually someone in accounting turned them in to the SEC anyhow. But you don't have to be a crook to run things this way. If you're at a loss, at least you can delay a reckoning by keeping the pot stirred.

For what it's worth, that's one possible interpretation.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Wine Country!

Reports from several visitors regarding the consumption of wine at the Blessed John Henry Newman group in Orange County, CA keep coming in, to the point that I really can't ignore them. I discussed this based on a couple of early reports here, but since then, I've had many more. I agree with the visitor who is concerned that there's not enough support and supervision of this and other groups from Houston. However, it's also the case that the priest responsible for this group, Andrew Bartus, seems to enjoy particular influence and favor in Catholic circles, which many who've gotten to know him feel is misguided. Fathers, this is eventually going to come back and bite you.

Let's start with what I think is a fairly liberal alcohol policy I found at random by searching Episcopal dioceses, that of the Diocese of East Carolina. (I'm familiar, though, with two Episcopal parishes in the Hollywood-West Los Angeles area that have strict no-alcohol-on-premises policies.) The East Carolina policy begins, "Our Church, in accordance with its tradition of moderation and balance, recognizes that alcohol can be used wisely." However, it specifies,

Alcohol is not appropriate to serve at every church-sponsored function, but if the congregational policy permits it to be served in any form, non-alcoholic alternatives must be offered. Non-alcoholic beverages must be served with the same attractiveness and accessibility as those containing alcohol, so that people who choose not to drink alcoholic beverages need not feel any embarrassment, discomfort, or inconvenience in exercising their preference.
It says later,
The beverages and other foods containing alcohol may be offered with nonalcoholic alternatives, they must never be promoted in such a way as to imply that partaking of them is any kind of social requirement. Promotion of parish events at which alcoholic beverages will be served should not include in the event's title specific reference to the alcoholic beverage (e.g., "Crab Feast" rather than "Beer and Crab Supper".
And,
All applicable Federal, State and Local laws and ordinances, including those governing the sale and serving of alcoholic beverages to minors, must be observed.
The reports I've received from observers, as well as numerous announcements on the web of Newman group events, or others in which Bartus is involved, indicate that prudent guidelines like these are simply not followed. Fathers, this is eventually going to come back and bite you.

Let's look at several reports. A blog post recounting a 2012 visit by Prof Jordan of the Fellowship of St Alban in Rochester, NY, to Bartus's group in Orange County concludes,

We had a very pleasant "coffee hour" after the service, although it was more than an hour, and no coffee was in sight. That was perfectly fine with me however, since the wine offered was more fitting for the occasion, and since we were after all in southern California, it was hot.
This would seem to be confirmation of another report I'd received that "coffee hour" at the group is regarded as "wine hour" there, but it also raises the troubling question of whether non-alcoholic alternatives are in fact offered, and what the children and toddlers get at the party.

Announcements of events connected with Fr Bartus seem to include references to wine with some frequency, for instance, this "Attorney Wine & Cheese Social" in which members of the St Thomas More Society of Orange County, a group of Catholic lawyers, are invited to schmooze over good-quality wine with none other than Fr Bartus. (If these are in fact Catholic attorneys, they have presumably completed their sacraments of initiation and are not eligible to become members of an Ordinariate group. So much for outreach.)

Just this past Advent, Bartus conducted an "In Office Retreat" at the Busch offices oratory, followed by a "Wine and Cheese Reception in the Wine Cellar". I'd love to work in that office! Once I worked for a senior vice president who had an office closet full of Johnnie Walker Black for special occasions, but they were never special enough to include me.

Next we have a somewhat worrisome announcement from the Camp El Camino at Santiago Retreat Center, which appears to be located near the boys' secondary school were Bartus has his day job:

Thursday night Young Adult Catholics at Work OC welcomes Fr. Andrew Bartus and 434 Ministries to The Studio for a special preview of their evangelization outreach to young adults in North Orange County.

Come on out and tour and bless the newly expanded and Anaheim Studios, enjoy
Good food
GREAT wine
Better Company

Outreach to young adults with great wine. Is anyone checking IDs?

In fact, as a Virtus alum, the whole idea of making contact with priests a wine and cheese party for teens is starting to bother me more than a little. But leaving that aside, the overall tone of all; these announcements suggests that drinking wine is part of being good, sophisticated company -- a violation of the sensible Episcopal policy above, which prohibits "embarrassment, discomfort, or inconvenience" or making consumption a "social requirement" for those who choose not to imbibe.

Fathers, this is eventually going to come back and bite you.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Calendar Thoughts

I assume Mrs Bush will read this and swat "Bishop" Williams into updating the calendar, but as of today, the St Mary's dissident web site is a full month out of date, with Easter being the most recent entry. Marilyn, Pentecost is May 24; maybe you should track Owen down and clue him in.

However, I think Mrs Bush and the others have exactly what they want in Williams: they don't expect much from him -- my impression is that he's about as knowledgeable about Christianity as an inattentive 12-year-old confirmand, and he missed the session on the Church calendar.

Says something about why they hated Fr Kelley, doesn't it?

Monday, May 4, 2015

Pickford-Dodd

Regarding my posts on Mary Pickford and her relationship to St Mary of the Angels, a visitor comments,
As far as I know, Mary Pickford's devotion was to Fr Dodd, whom she called "the sweetest old sourpuss..." rather than to the parish itself, much less to "Episcopalianism," -- which I doubt ever existed. I think her hosting the "garden party" at Pickfair was to support HIM by such a fund-raising effort.

Despite any sojourn into the Baker-Patterson-Glover-Eddy Cult, I think she basically considered herself a 'divorced Catholic' - (and rejected by the Roman Catholic Church because of her marital history). Fr Dodd continued to provide some emotional & spiritual support to her, such that in the mid-1950s, she pulled whatever strings were necessary (and she still could) to ensure that Fr Dodd received some sort of award, presented in Glendale, with clergy reps of many sorts in attendance. . . . I'm curious about your remark about Fr Dodd asking her not to come to St Mary's any longer. His stand against divorce is understandable, as a good churchman at the time. We had photos of him with the group at a private wedding for Mary's brother Jack's wedding. I know that marriage also ended in divorce; but I do not know Jack's marital status at the time.

There's a great deal of urban myth surrounding the parish's history -- but of course, it's Hollywood. Many thanks for the clarifications.

Friday, May 1, 2015

More On Receptions

Many thanks to the visitor who has been keeping me up to date on the information that's become available on 2015 receptions into US-Canadian Ordinariate parishes. For context, he has found a number of 66,000 baptized Christians received into the Catholic Church in the US during 2013. A number in the five figures at least sounds credible to me, as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which has a capacity of 3000, was completely filled with candidates, catechumens, and sponsors when I attended the Rite of Election there in 2012. (My visitor's source has 1900 candidates and catechumens in Los Angeles in 2015, which corresponds to my 2012 observation.) He says,
Since the initial group reception Mrs Gyapong has posted pictures of two or three people who have been received into the Church in her [Ottawa] parish, on her Foolishness to the World blog. Three people were received at St Thomas More, Toronto in its first year, and "some" (fewer than three, I imagine) on the Sunday after Easter this year. The Calendar on the website for St John the Evangelist, Calgary indicates that new members will be received into the Church next Sunday.
He also refers me to a post at Ordinariate News from The Rev. Eric L. Bergman at St Thomas More, Scranton, PA:
At our parish’s Easter Vigil Mass at 8PM on April 4 I will baptize one, confirm three, and give First Holy Communion to four new parishioners who have been in formation since the fall. None of these people are former Anglicans but are, rather, people from the neighborhood who found St. Joseph Church because of its close proximity to their homes.

All of them came seeking to complete the Sacraments of Initiation, three of them having been baptized in the Catholic Church, at which point their formal formation in the Faith ceased. As you may recall, since 2013 such persons are part of our call to evangelize: Pope Francis decreed at that time that those Catholics who never completed the Sacraments of Initiation may become members of Ordinariate parishes if we catechize and initiate them.

But why should someone have to dig so hard to find this information? It is not contained anywhere in the US-Canadian Ordinariate news pages. Does anyone in Houston pay attention?