Saturday, June 24, 2017

St George Republic, MO

My regular correspondent comments,

This is the chapel in the former retreat centre which is now the Seraiah family's home. There are three services a week here, one followed by a Bible study. Fr Seraiah is also responsible for two diocesan parishes in the area and occasionally services are held jointly with them. When the group started meeting here last summer it was "Bring your own chair" so progress has been made in upgrading the worship space; the long term plan is to build a church on the property. Fr Seraiah's background is evangelical Protestant and while his theology seems soundly, and conservatively, Catholic I do not see much in his approach that is Anglican. I'm not quite sure why he wants to be in Ordinariate rather than diocesan ministry (he spent the first four years after his ordination as a diocesan priest in Iowa). On the other hand, the local lay leadership was very anxious to find an OCSP priest who would relocate, and unlike some Fr Seraiah has been prepared to do that many times in his ministry.
It seems to me that the Seraiah saga is illustrative of the desultory and opportunistic development of the OCSP -- he was hired by the ACA St Aidan's Des Moines parish on the assumption that it would go into the OCSP, but it backtracked. At that point, he was ordained a married Catholic priest in effect to rescue him from that circumstance. Eventually he has been able to take over a very minimal startup effort on a part-time basis.

So far, it looks like there's nothing unusual in the highly provisional arrangements we see, nor the very low attendance.