You are here
ANGLICAN ESSENTIALS: OPEN LETTER TO ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA
March 1, 2005
Over the past two days, an extraordinary insight into the mind of the Anglican Communion has been provided to the Council of Anglican Essentials Canada, federation and network. The Primate of the Southern Cone, Archbishop Gregory Venables, made a special trip directly from the Primates' meeting in Newry, Northern Ireland, to Vancouver on Sunday, February 27th to meet with the Essentials leadership and later with a large gathering of representatives of many parishes that have remained faithful to the traditional doctrine of the Anglican Communion.
During his briefings, the Archbishop spelled out, with profound clarity and simplicity, the seriousness of the situation that faces both the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA). He emphasized that several things need to be clearly understood.
The Anglican Communion, with one voice, has affirmed the unchanging doctrine of the historic Christian faith once received from the apostles and which continues to be the teaching of orthodox Christianity around the world. The Communion is also united in its affirmation of the teaching on human sexuality provided by Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
In the communique's language of compassionate love, which the Archbishop described as "typical Anglo-Saxon understatement", the Provinces of Canada and the United States have been asked to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council. The Primates' request recognizes that communion had been broken already prior to Newry. The Anglican Church of Canada now has to choose either to return to the Anglican Communion or to "walk apart" from the rest of the seventy-seven million Anglicans in the global Communion. The Primates have encouraged the Anglican Church of Canada to appear before the Council in June, 2005 to answer for its actions.
The call for this choice comes from a unified Communion, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, not just from a few "angry arch-conservatives".
The Primates' call is made with profound love in the hope that the Anglican Church of Canada and ECUSA will repent and do what is required to re-establish their place in the Communion.
However, should the Anglican Church of Canada refuse to do what is required, Canadian Anglicans - dioceses, parishes, bishops, priests, individual laypeople - will then have to make their choice: either to continue their affiliation with the Anglican Church of Canada and thus to walk apart, or to take action to remain as faithful members of the Anglican Communion.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, working through a monitoring "panel of reference", will "supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions" for those choosing to remain within the Anglican Communion.
As Anglicans we wish to express our gratitude and appreciation to the Primates. We thank them for their clear communique and also for their deep love and heartfelt desire that all Canadian Anglicans will continue to walk with them.
Anglican Essentials Canada - The Feast of St. David, 2005
