Monday, June 19, 2017

Christ The King Towson, MD

My regular correspondent sent me some links to photos of Christ the King, Towson:

At least at the time the photos were taken, the altar is set up for versus populum celebration, so the overall atmosphere is low-church. While there's a little more effort to seem Catholic than at Holy Nativity, this stems largely from cloth hangings, and there's no question that should the need to sell arise, First Baptist would find the property attractive -- this may have been in mind from the start, or this may simply have been a selection from a catalog of prefab church building options (pointed windows or rounded?).

There's no question that there are diocesan parish buildings like this -- and I think the pastor of our successful diocesan parish might say that's part of the problem facing the Church these days, at least if you prodded him. But let's ask what Anglicanorum coetibus is apparently trying to do -- basically, make an extra effort. What we see here is regression to the mean. You can have a DW mass, or within a short time, Pentecostal Holiness can set up a rock n roll band on the dais. That wouldn't happen at St Thomas the Apostle, whatever else would.

It's hard to avoid the impression here that we've-done-enough. Again, there's a bait-and-switch in operation, the OCSP is sold as the new liturgical movement, positive outreach to Anglicanism, but what the buyer gets is still hard to distinguish from First Baptist, or indeed, the don't-quite-care diocesan parish down the street. Let's keep in mind as we move along that this is part of the OCSP's upper tier.