I have recently come across a new blog under the title of St Mary’s Hollywood: The Cold Case File, run by John Bruce, an erstwhile parishioner at St Mary of the Angels Church in Hollywood during the events of 2011 and 2012.
Naturally, this church in the western USA concerns me in no way, and I stay entirely outside the ongoing polemics.
What is of wider interest is some of the recent postings concerning historical aspects of the TAC. He makes use of the material I have provided on my website (The TAC Archive), postings from this blog and several other sources. Mr Bruce attempts to reason out the facts according to both evidence and conjecture. It is important that records remain of the events of the past five years which led to the downfall of Archbishop Hepworth and the fragmentation of those parts of the TAC that did not accept the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus and which furthermore did everything to demolish any attempt at maintaining some kind of middle “provisional ordinariate” provision.
There was a whole cross-section of clergy whose transition to the Roman Catholic Church was not simple in canonical terms, and who could have been treated with better pastoral outreach or simple courtesy. There was also a number of laity who would have needed longer to follow what was going on. With the branches being sawn away from under them, they could only make a precipitated decision to convert to the RC Church, follow the “new TAC” line (for want of a better term to describe a certain hermeneutic of rupture) or leave organised church Christianity altogether as some have doubtlessly done.
Again, there was fault on all sides and this is no place for binary thinking!
The new blog makes no provision for comments, which is understandable given the likelihood of troll attacks. Despite the continuing conflict concerning that church in Hollywood, I hope to see this blog produce objective and thoroughly researched work.
