Starting today, Anglican leaders are holding a key meeting in Egypt to decide whether to recognize a new church for conservatives from their North American flock...First, there was the Holy See: the Vatican and home to the Bishop of Rome, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Then came the See of Canterbury, where its archbishop, claiming a heritage dating back to Augustine, ruled the Church of England.
Next: the See of Pittsburgh?
When the Anglican Church in North America was formed late last year as a conservative alternative to the liberal churches of Canada and the U.S., the Bishop of Pittsburgh was installed as its first archbishop after leading his diocese out of the Anglican Communion in a fight over gay marriage.
Now the bushy-browed Robert Duncan wants back in, and an all-important meeting opening today in Alexandria, Egypt, of Anglican leaders from around the world marks the beginning of that process.
At the request of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the communion, Duncan prepared a paper to be presented at the meeting on the aspirations of his new church and why it should be made part of the communion.
While Duncan will not be at the meeting (he is, after all, not officially an Anglican primate), his case will be made by conservative archbishops from Africa and South America who are sympathetic to his cause – one that could soon see Duncan at the helm of Christendom's latest big split or its reformation.
Charlie Masters, general secretary of Duncan's new church and its spokesperson in Canada, says the intention of setting up the Anglican Church in North America was to offer an alternative entity operating parallel to the established churches of Canada and the United States.
Breaking away was the first step. Being recognized as a province in the communion is the next.
"We have organized ourselves as an Anglican province and are operating as a province," says the soft-spoken Masters, who is also executive archdeacon of the Anglican Network in Canada.
The primates attending this week's five-day meeting will be told about the constitution and canons of the new church in hopes they will support it being made the communion's 39th province, with Duncan as primate. (Duncan could not be reached for comment.)
Masters believes the new church can bring unity to the communion. By providing a theological alternative to the liberal Canadian and American churches, he says, conservative Anglicans will no longer feel the need to break away.
There are about 3,300 Canadians in the new church, members of the 26 Network parishes spread across the country and the 15 parishes affiliated with the Anglican Coalition in Canada.
In all, the new church claims a membership of 100,000 people across the continent.
Williams wants the primates to forward Duncan's paper to the governing Anglican Consultative Council (which meets in May), along with their comments on whether the new church should be approved.
While the primates gathering this week have no power to set policy or tell the ACC what to do, a favourable review from them could hold strong sway, Masters says. "The broader the base of recognition, the healthier the Anglican communion will be."
The consultative council – a mix of clergy and laity from around the world – is widely recognized as the only body that can establish a new Anglican province, but the move is far from assured. In fact, there's been no word from the council that it has even agreed to consider the question.
There is, after all, much resistance to the new church being recognized as the newest province. "The Anglican Church of Canada does not believe that it should be recognized," says Paul Feheley, archdeacon of the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Canadian church has argued that the new entity led by Duncan is not Anglican, having left the communion, and that the struggles over same-sex issues have diverted attention from more pressing matters, such as the economic meltdown.
While most of current Anglican primates oppose recognition of the North American church, those who do support it represent the majority of the actual membership of Anglican churches worldwide.
Traditionally, however, Anglican provinces are defined in geographical, not theological, terms.
The Canadian church has been at the centre of the controversy swirling in the Anglican communion in recent years over same-sex marriage blessings and gay clergy. As one of the top officials in the Canadian church, Feheley chooses his words carefully.
"Within the communion, there are certainly issues we struggle with, but there are certainly many ways we can work together," Feheley says.
Tomorrow, it will be Canadian primate Fred Hiltz's turn to choose his words carefully. He has been asked to make a presentation to the group outlining how the struggle over same-sex issues has affected "church mission" in Canada.
It will be a chance, Feheley says, to address "misconceptions" about the Canadian church among other countries. The Canadian church has not approved same-sex marriage blessings, although the Toronto diocese plans to begin blessing stable, long-term gay relationships within a year.
Interventions by foreign primates into the affairs of another province, a sore point within the Canadian church, are prohibited in the communion. Hiltz is also expected to address the issue in his presentation tomorrow.
The Network parishes that Masters represents now pledge allegiance to the conservative Buenos Aires-based Archbishop Gregory Venables, rather than to Hiltz. Masters calls this an "emergency measure" in place until the new church is recognized and Duncan made a primate.
Under Anglican tradition, however, a parish must be affiliated with a recognized bishop in order to be considered part of the communion. By pledging allegiance to Venables, Masters says, his breakaway churches can claim to still be Anglican.
Once the new church is recognized – and Masters is confident it will be – the allegiance of its parishes will switch to Duncan.
In his presentation, Hiltz is expected to address the impact that such foreign interventions have had on the Canadian church, arguing they have distracted attention from its "mission:" to spread the gospel, help the poor and address social injustice.
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(Source: TSC)