The Failure Of Anglicanorum Coetibus: The Model

Anglicanorum coetibus and the complementary norms themselves aren't specific about how the groups that enter the Catholic Church as bodies of former Anglicans are organized, but explanations at the time of the constitution's promulgation generally assumed they were existing Anglican parishes that wouid enter with their Anglican clergy. This is at least implied in the constitution itself:

§4 The Ordinariate is composed of lay faithful, clerics and members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, originally belonging to the Anglican Communion and now in full communion with the Catholic Church, or those who receive the Sacraments of Initiation within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate.

Early publicity focused on parishes that would enter, not only as continuing corporate entities, but with property and endowments as well as their clergy and people. Very few did this, and the attempt of the St Mary of the Angels Hollywood parish, which did have significant property and endowment, was a spectacuilar failure driven in large part by the complacency of Steenson and the people around him.

But this and other failures in the early months of the North American ordinariate led almost immediately to departures from the model. A visitor who often contributed to the old blog points out this difficulty:

Fr Ousley, the Pastor of St John the Baptist, Bridgeport, PA, is retiring in June, at 70. He went to Yale and Nashotah House, and has a Ph.D from the University of Chicago. He served as a TEC clergyman for twenty years, and in the ACA for a further fourteen. He led 25 members of his ACA congregation into the Ordinariate. and later merged the group with the John Henry Newman Fellowship led by David Moyer after it became clear that the latter would not be proceeding to ordination.

The combined group later bought a surplus church and rectory from the local diocese (they had plenty to choose from) and has been raised to the status of a full parish in the OCSP. They have undertaken a number of repairs and improvements to the property. I give this history in detail because it presumably represents what was envisioned as the Ordinariate template: an established formerly “Anglican” clergyman and his congregation with the resources to maintain a church and a full program of parish life. But this ideal has remained elusive.

Most of the former clergy coming forward for ordination in the Ordinariate served as “Anglican” clergy only briefly, or not at all and they bring no former parishioners. Some became Catholic years ago but did not previously pursue ordination, or at least did not pursue it successfully. A few have gathered a “Pre-Ordinariate” group, but this model, once the norm, is now uncommon.

The announced replacement for Fr Ousley is Fr William Cantrell. He is about ten years younger than Fr Ousley and was ordained for the OCSP in December 2013 after 24 years as a TEC military chaplain. He has never served with an Ordinariate community even in an assistant capacity but has continued his work as a chaplain in a VA hospital. This choice suggests to me that Bp Lopes had some staffing issues: St John the Baptist, Bridgeport is a full-time job but cannot provide a full-time stipend. Relevant pastoral/managerial experience is in short supply.

The early anticipation was that there would be two Philadelphia-area parishes, one formed around David Moyer and the other around Fr Ousley. Within weeks, this prospect proved unworkable, with the two groups proving far smaller than expected, with neither bringing in property. The result has been a single marginal parish whose ability to maintain or improve its aging and obsolete property is in fact far from assured.

Even among the handful of parishes that came in under the original model, with property, endowment, and clergy, leaving aside the former Pastoral Provision parishes for the time being, none has visibly prospered, while some, like St Barnabas Omaha, have suffered from mismanagement despite repeated changes in clergy.

But in fact, there have been few new communities of any sort, and few talented clergy to lead them. And even for those, there are few billets available to pay a full stipend, which compounds the problem, since the ordinariate clearly isn't seen as a rewarding career by potential new candidates. Instead, it's a last-chance career option for men who haven't succeeded in Protestant careers. Learning to code is in fact probably a better choice for such people.