Monday, January 2, 2017

No Second Wave

My regular correspondent responds to yesterday's post:
It seems that there is no second wave of groups either in North America or the UK. The ones that are doing reasonably well now, the ones that have achieved critical mass and can support themselves, will probably continue although their "Anglican" character may gradually morph into something pidgin. I suspect many of the smaller groups will fold when their leader and/or founding members cannot be replaced. I note that the parochial administrator of Holy Nativity, Payson, AZ has applied to retire later this year. Payson has a population of about 15,000, a Catholic church with a Saturday Vigil and three Sunday masses, (one in Spanish) and an Episcopalian parish that looks flourishing .

If Holy Nativity has not attracted enough new people to become a self-sustaining parish since it was received four years ago I do not see a rosy future for it, unless there are changing local circumstances. Who will come to Payson to be the new OCSP leader?

However, even of the full parishes, I still have my doubts that either Scranton or Bridgeport is financially viable.

Here's a question: in the wake of the clergy child abuse scandals, the Church commissioned at least one important outside study to determine their cause and cure. Has it ever commissioned an equivalent study of why so many millions of Catholics left the Church in the last two generations? I'm still puzzled that rather than go after those millions in some way, it's made such a fruitless effort to bring in a few thousand Anglicans.