Land Donated to Ordinariate to Build First Chancery
December 3, 2012 8 Comments
Some US Ordinariate news:
The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter has been given land in Houston, Texas, on which to build its first chancery, or headquarters, Msgr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, the Ordinary, announced today.
During a Mass at Our Lady of Walsingham, the principal church of the Ordinariate, he said, “Today, I want to acknowledge with deepest gratitude a very generous gift from an anonymous donor to Our Lady of Walsingham and the Ordinariate: the gift of five acres. … This will be the future home of the chancery of the Ordinariate as well as serve future expansion needs of this wonderful, growing parish. It is an incredible blessing, and I know you all will want to say with me: To God be the glory.”
The property, purchased by donors for $5 million, is located on Westview Drive, immediately behind and contiguous with Our Lady of Walsingham, which is at 7809 Shadyvilla Lane, Houston. The parish site also includes a shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham.
Joining parishioners at today’s Mass were a number of Anglican priests from throughout the United States and Canada who are applying to become Catholic priests for the Ordinariate. The men were in Houston as part of the Ordinariate’s priest formation program.
Planning for the chancery design will begin later this month. Additional donors will be sought for the construction of the building. The Ordinariate currently has a small office at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston, with most of the small staff located in other cities across the United States.
Pope Benedict XVI established the Ordinariate on January 1, 2012 for former Anglican groups and clergy seeking to become Catholic while retaining aspects of their Anglican heritage and liturgy. In one year, the Ordinariate, which is equivalent to a diocese, has grown to include 1,500 people across the United States and Canada, 35 communities and 24 priests. Msgr. Steenson, the Ordinary, is a former Episcopal bishop who became Catholic in 2007 and a Catholic priest in 2009.
For more information on the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, one of only two ordinariates in the world, visit www.usordinariate.org, Facebook, or www.walsingham-church.org.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Great news for the Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter here in the U.S.A. As an outsider I think the Ordinariate will slowly show growth and will flourish. Feeling bad for the U.K. Ordinariate.
Yeah, I remember that some-million-dollar donation that was taken back.
MAN. If I were the UK Ordinariate, it’d be like winning the Lottery and then people taking it back.
The dynamics of the situation in North America were always likely to be more favourable than those in the UK, for a variety of reasons. That being said the UK Ordinariate is bubbling along and in a far stronger position than this time last year. Numbers are increasing slowly but surely due to a constant trickle of newcomers. At Easter 2011 the total number was around 950 or so, at the moment I believe the figure is closer to 1,300, with some 250 or so being received at Easter 2012.
I know a lot has been made of the lack of a principal church yet being assigned to Msgr Newton, but as he has said himself the costs associated with having a property, in the absence of a generous endowment, would at the moment be a burden rather than a blessing. While some might point to St. Agatha’s in Portsmouth already being an Ordinariate property and also suitable given it’s ownership arrangements, for historical and practical reasons any Ordinariate headquarters has to be based in Greater London.
I remember this discussion at The Anglo-Catholic blog, and there were several suggestions about a good principal church in London, one of them was this small, ugly modernist church that seemed misplaced in the middle of the street. (I forgot the name of it, but it was for sale, and apparently within the UK Ordinariate’s price range.) Some of the commentators were whining why they couldn’t get one of those, oh, I don’t know, Medieval English Cathedrals. Which in hindsight is humorous considering how many members there are in the UK Ordinariates and the cost of upkeep for one of those cathedrals.
But, yes… The fact that there’s a slow, but growing number is encouraging. Maybe it’s for the best, you know, probably easier to adapt with a slow but constant trickle rather than trying to accommodate a sudden influx of people. (For example, there won’t be a question of “Where are we going to put all these people during services???”)
I am not so sure that the situation for the Ordinariate in North America is necessarily “more favourable”, than in the the UK – I think one might simply say that the dynamics are different and so things may be expected to evolve differently.
Yes, the present absence of a “principal church” is a minor problem but as friend Conchur rightly says, Mgr Newton can not be that anxious to take on the financial burden just yet and the clergy and people of St James, Spanish Place (which acommodates the Marylebone Ordinarate Group) have thus far been very welcoming to the Ordinariate for important ceremonial occasions – such as the Chrism Mass.
To use a human analogy, all the Ordinariates are akin to human infants – our Ordinariate in England was the first-born of the family and, while not yet out of nappies yet, it is beginning to toddle about.
That’s such an adorable analogy. Let’s hope Mother Church is attentive to them.
While I, too, would like to see the Ordinariate in the UK have their own, like Mourad says, it’s just a baby. Lots of negative press from people screaming for the Ordinariate to have their church, the bishops in England and Wales refusing etc etc, yet not a single one of those shrills ever proposed seriously how the Ordinariate would fund it.
Those shouting “NO!” to a modern church and insisting on a lovely, old medieval one obviously have forgotten how inefficient those buildings are, and how much funds they suck up just trying to function on a day to day basis.
We should let things develop as they do. When the time is right, the Lord will and always does, provide.
When I worked in the West Midlands, our parish had a running (good humoured) joke with the local Anglicans about swapping churches every 6 months. We, in our nice-enough-but-undistinguished 60′s box, budgeted £250/day for maintaining the church buildings (including adding to the emergency fund), lighting, heating, running the parish office, and paying the priest’s stipend and the wages of the secretary, the gardener, and whatnot. They, in their splendid, centuries-old edifice needed £250/day just to keep the doors open and the lighting and heating on – and that did not cover emergency expenditure, improvements, administrative expenses or people.
That was 20 years ago and for a small church that could just about squeeze in 300 people if they were very friendly. I shudder to think what it costs them today.