Anglo-Catholic Fastidiousness

The remarks I quoted from Frederick Kinsman yesterday on Anglo-Catholics, that among them "there was much exercise of private judgment, both in a chronic fastidiousnesss which spent its energy in pointing how everyone else was more or less wrong" go a long way for me in explaining what's happened in the North American ordinariate. A visitor comments,

The “chronic fastidiousness” of which Kinsman speaks is a defining characteristic of the ordinariate. No doubt it is more difficult in the Catholic church to flout constituted authorities, at least where they have taken a position, but the mindset that “we have it right, and everyone else is wrong” is everywhere, and the “everyone” often means other ordinariate communities, not just benighted “Novus Ordo” parishes.

After over four hundred comments on a video of the mass at St Timothy, Sykesville which revealed their use of women servers and guitar accompaniment, the administrator of the Anglican ordinariate Facebook page closed comments. While some comments were supportive, or at least counselled charity, most were cruelly negative and dismissive. Another post about how Bp Lopes was “using covid” to crack down on Anglo-Papalist liturgical practices like the prayers at the foot of the altar drew at least fifty mostly critical comments.

It's worth noting as well that some, though not all, ordinariate clergy have been able to run a racket whereby they at best simply maintain their popularity with their parishes, and at worst exploit them financially, by fostering that attitude that everyone else has it wrong. It appears that Houston has gradually been bringing these men to heel, but this raises the question of how the ordinariate can succeed if it's been at least partly relying on the fastidious faction up to now.

My own experience with the failed attempt of the St Mary of the Angels Hollywood Anglican parish to go into the ordinariate bears directly on the tendency of Anglo-Catholics to be in permanent protest. It's worth noting that Cardinal Mahony, in rejecting the parish's application to become Catholic under the Pastoral Provision, directly raised the question of how the parish could expect to be Catholic if it refused to obey its Episcopalian authorities.

In other words, it sounds as though there was plenty of insight into Anglo-Catholicism already within the Catholic Church that should have counseled prudence prior to the implementation of either the Pastoral Provision or Anglicanorum coetibus. At the same time, there seems to be a growing recognition in the Church that factions like those represented by Fr Zuhlsdorf are promoting pre-Conciliarist fastidiousness that also needs to be curbed.

This recent video by Bp Barron suggests what the current direction of the Church is regarding the pre-Conciliarist faction. In it, he makes the point that this sort of fastidiousness over Vatican II is basically Protestant.