Two weeks ago, John Bruce was appointed as CEO of the seminary formation plant in Los Angeles and chief intelligence officer against the proliferation of original ideas, especially those of Anglican influence. He and his team are ensuring products of excellent quality for the diocesan clergy, suitably purified from latent Anglicanism. Marketing and profits are at an all-time high. This is his new article – But Is It A Consistent Product? for examination by the corporate steering committee with its new Project Manager Mr Mickey Drivel.
The trainees for the priesthood are now subjected to Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA). The method is applied in some religious orders and other diocesan seminaries as potential failure modes and effects analysis; failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA).
Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in theology, liturgical preferences or dress. Failure modes are any errors or deviances from the norm, especially ones that affect the paying, praying and obeying client in parishes, and can be potential or actual.
Effects analysis refers to studying the consequences of those failures, especially persisting Anglicanism manifested through liturgical preferences or deviant personalities in the event of exposure to Continuing Anglican Churches. These errors are usually remedied through re-education camps, but usually the seminarian has to be rejected.
Failures are prioritized according to how serious their consequences are, how frequently they occur and how easily they can be detected. The purpose of the FMEA is to take actions to eliminate or reduce failures, starting with the highest-priority ones. The very worst problems are liturgical and ecclesiological, along with ideas assimilated to Romanticism. Failure modes and effects analysis also documents current knowledge and actions about the risks of failures, for use in continuous improvement. If people can be arrested by the police for “pre-crime”, it is that no human risk may be taken. This analysis is performed by an evaluation team to decide which seminarians will be ordained on the basis of actual and potential criteria according to the risk evaluation.
This method is used during clergy training or re-education to prevent failures of absolute compliance. Later, it is used for control, before and during ongoing operation of the process. Ideally, FMEA begins during the earliest conceptual stages of evaluation and continues throughout the life of each priest.
Mr Bruce has devised a number of ways to process the waste products from the ordinariates and continuing churches. They are processed by a cross-functional team of people with diverse knowledge about Argentinian Jesuit theology, adaptation to boredom and the needs of deadpan American parish life.
The process can be very detailed, for example using flowcharts for that extra bit of relevance and to identify the scope and to make sure every team member understands it in detail.
More adventures from Mickey Drivel next week…
The Blue Flower 
Brilliant. I can just see him at the training seminar for the new staff, giving a Power Point presentation, laser pointer in hand, as they sip corporate coffee from cardboard cups.
Mr. Bruce is a prime example of what the internet can become. A person of no particular qualifications with a bellyful of rage and an illusion of self-importance can present himself as an authority and even convince a bunch of people that he has that authority. Someone who should be ignored or laughed off the stage so easily becomes a mover and shaker in his restricted kingdom, and thus become dangerous to any real sanity.
It’s a pity that there are so many of this type on the ‘net, as there is such potential for good. There are sensible and thoughtful people (including many I strongly disagree with) posting and commenting, making both information and opinion more readily available. If only we could somehow avoid letting fools become so prominent …
He has been going on with this for a long time, and most people will know whether they find his utterances credible. There is no need for censorship. I believe in a world where people have influence or not on their own merit. Perhaps he will decide to model the Church, not on modern corporate practices in business but more sinister systems of repression. Perhaps he will come full circle and uphold a restoration of the worst days of the Spanish Inquisition!
Racks and pinions, and half-dead minions, polluted soil and boiling oil, fingers fried in several ways…
Will he still be writing in a couple of years’ time?
I’m certainly not talking censorship, but I think we need to be aware that the kind of garbage he and others spew out so readily is dangerous, precisely because “most people will know whether they find his utterances credible”, but not whether his utterances are credible. People accept the most outrageous falsities as truth as readily as they accept truth itself. Perhaps in the long run the untruths are exposed, but enormous damage can be done in the meantime. The ‘net provides more opportunity for spreading untruth than ever before. Lies and half-truths have enormous power, have had from Eden to the present day. They do not self-correct – im fact it took something as drastic as the Cross to counter the effects of the “big lie”. I don’t know what I advocate doing beyond awareness, but I am convinced that awareness that this kind of thing is not innocuous is essential.
Will he still be writing in a couple of years’ time? I’ll be amazed if he stops while there is still breath in him, and there is no shortage of other similar voices.
Ouch! Misinformation is disseminated into the cyber world, and in a few decades’ time it would be the only (incorrect) information available. The individuals in possession of the factual information kept mum, and therefore there is nothing available to contradict Mickey Drivel’s “truth”.
That seems to be the way of the world, unless we put up accurate information (I have no inside information about the Ordinariates) or counter-attack with satire to show the absurdity of the objectionable position. There are also things to be learned from sites on dealing with “cluster B” personalities: no-contact, grey-walling, etc. I don’t know whether Mr Bruce is one, but it would seem possible by his style.
I first started following John Bruce’s posts in an effort to find out what was happening to the parish I was baptized in, st. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood. He occasionally posts stuff happening in the local court proceedings etc, but seems to mostly slam ‘errant Anglicans’ who cleave or don’t cleave Rome-ward. He appears to be happy in his current parish, but not happy with the parish two blocks away from St. Mary’s (Mother of Good Counsel). I wish him well and occasionally pray for him.
And I always pray for you, Fr. Anthony!