The headhunter called afterward to tell me how it went. "He didn't like your answer," he said. "He thought you'd find a way just to solve the problem and make it go away. But then why would they need his whole department?"
Naturally there's a great deal of internal logic to that position. Maybe I've always had the wrong perspective on things. But this brings me to another question: the OCSP clearly is going to have a continuing problem replacing priests due to retirement, illness, or other attrition -- there have been maybe a dozen instances to date, with five vacancies impending now -- but this says that of about 60 priests, roughly 20% have had to be replaced within five years.
But baked into its system is a near-impossibility of moving priests around to compensate for these vacancies. They're married with families (and indeed, wasn't that the point?). They've had to prove they don't need an OCSP stipend to survive, because in most cases, the OCSP can't support them. To move, they'd have to quit the jobs that sustain them, not to mention dislocate their families and the wives who probably also work.
Of the reported 10 or 11 Anglicans in the pipeline for ordination, how many can move to fill the upcoming five vacancies in the OCSP? I think we already know the answer here. So why are we persisting with the idea that this will be good for the OCSP?
Sometimes the solution to the problem comes from the disappearance of the problem. But this can affect careers, of course.
UPDATE: My regular correspondent adds,
Staffing situation is actually worse than it appears as there are seven groups which have lay parochial administrators because their OCSP priest is canonically retired (in three instances) or they do not have an OCSP priest and rely on a diocesan priest or ad hoc arrangements.
