The Failure Of Anglicanorum Coetibus: The Record

The North American ordinariate began its life with several major disappointments, and it's never really recovered. It's now in a situation where the first generation of priests who came in with early groups has reached retirement age, but, as in the case of Fr Ousley, their replacements don't have equivalent background or experience. My regular correspondent from the old blog outlines the record as the ordinariate approaches ten years of age:

We have frequently discussed the conspicuous failures among the Ordinariate communities: the small, struggling “continuing” groups which became small, struggling Catholic groups, the groups gathered as ordination opportunities for clergy who have subsequently retired or moved on to local diocesan posts or otherwise departed from the scene. But the apparently successful communities also reveal grave weaknesses.

In ten years only eleven groups have achieved full parish status. Four of those were inherited from the Pastoral Provision, so in fact only seven groups have achieved this goal under the provisions of Anglicanorum coetibus. And the parochial status of one of them—-St Luke, Ft Washington—-is somewhat problematic as it shares a building and a pastor with the local diocese, suggesting that it is not actually a self-sustaining congregation.

You have reported on the problems of St Barnabas, Omaha, now awaiting the arrival of its third pastor since joining the Ordinariate in 2013. Fr Bengry seems to be holding it together on his own at St John the Evangelist, Calgary, but that situation, including its odd financing, is a ticking time bomb. We hear little about Incarnation, Orlando and Mt Calvary, Baltimore, but we will assume that their situation is stable.

Christ the King, Towson seems to be relatively thriving; my only concern is that it seems to be unduly centred on the Meeks family. Liturgically and musically it resembles a typical OF parish, with lengthy sermons by Fr Meeks which have been faithfully posted every Sunday on YouTube for the last decade.

Like the much smaller St Timothy, Sykesville whose live-stream video drew wails of horror when it was posted on Ordinariate-themed FB pages a few months ago, CTK is a liturgical outlier whose members would find little to attract them at a typical OCSP mass.

So, this is all there is to show, and it’s not much.

All the ordinariate parishes are at best marginal. What's struck me about my experience of the diocesan Church is how much it contradicts the traditionalist stereotypes of gay clergy, happy-clappy liturgy, and declining interest. Cardinal Mahony and the St John's Seminary in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles have been consistent targets of traditionalists, but the senior priests we've encountered who've been products of the seminary and ordained by Mahony are impressive men who set inspirational examples, and the younger priests who've followed them are just as good -- a number have passed through our parish, and they're pretty exceptional.

Why woukld people who've voluntarily become Catholic, presumably with no emotional or family ties to declining parishes, want nevertheless to isolate themselves in a ghetto of retro mediocrity? The only upside to this seems to be how few people wish to do it.