Governance of the top-heavy but financially depleted Anglican Church of Canada has become a priority because the church is one-quarter of its former size and shrinking. Delegates to the church’s General Synod in the last week of June wrestled with financial and theological issues.
Iain Luke of the Diocese of Saskatchewan argued that while the national church from the 1960s to the 1980s led from the center, “today the engine of the church is the local church, so our energy and resources should be focused there.”
Under the church’s canons, Archbishop Shane Parker, the new Primate, must give up his role as Bishop of Ottawa and move near the denomination’s head office in Toronto within 90 days. The canons also stipulate that the Primate must retire at 70, which will limit the tenure of Parker, age 67.
Synod passed a motion that the Council of General Synod (CoGS) examine how to modify the canon so that a Primate could continue living in a home diocese upon election to the primacy.
As a background note explained: “In the world-wide Anglican Communion, the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church (USA) are the only two Primacies which do not maintain the role of Diocesan Bishop for the Primate. This has been the case in the ACoC since 1970; prior to 1970 the Primate maintained their previous role as Diocesan bishop.”
The note added: “Maintaining the prior diocesan role keeps the bishop grounded in the life of a diocese, the basic building block of the Anglican Communion. It avoids creating a ‘fourth order’ of ‘CEO,’ a concept which is foreign to the history of the church catholic as an organic body. A bishop presides, preaches, teaches, raises up, ordains; and needs the diocesan life to maintain that life with a degree of coherence.”
Even the figurehead of the Anglican Communion is the Bishop of Canterbury. To help a Primate give sufficient attention to the diocese, a suffragan bishop would be appointed. The arrangement would allow bishops who did not want to uproot their families from their hometowns, or who cannot afford to live in Toronto, to consider standing for primate.
The revised canon would say: “The Primate may at their discretion retain any Episcopal and Metropolitical offices held at the time of election to the Primacy.”
It will take two synods to change the canon, but holding a constitutional convention could hasten its approval.
Synod voted to create a working group to develop a proposal for a new organizational structure of the denomination and the convening of a Constitutional Convention.
Synod voted to ask that the Primate and the next Officers and Council of the General Synod report at least annually on steps taken regarding the six points outlined in Creating Pathways for the Transformational Change of the General Synod, with a cumulative report to the next General Synod in 2028.
There wasn’t much debate about the six pathways, but Synod voted overwhelmingly for the allocation of up to $2 million in unrestricted funds for the purpose of pursuing them, and stipulated that “Any such allocation is to only happen consistent with principles of good financial stewardship.” The funding motion had been amended to include caveats—seemingly in light of a $9 million lease for the relocation of Church House (which had not been vetted in advance by the church’s national Finance Committee).
NDAs
When a motion concerning non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements (NDAs) came to the floor, Chancellor Canon Clare Burns moved for a Committee of the Whole to allow for discussion of some legal complexities.
The resolution asked in part that Synod “direct the Primate and Officers of General Synod not to execute any future contract that includes a non-disclosure or non-disparagement agreement with the purpose or effect of concealing details relating to sexual misconduct, or an allegation of abuse, assault, exploitation, or harassment,” except under certain conditions.
It also requested that the Primate and Officers of General Synod “report publicly on the number of NDAs that have been entered into by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada since 2000.”
The chancellor said she had experienced “secondary trauma” in her secular work dealing with over 5,000 child-protection cases. Yet she also knew the dangers of “specious and unsubstantiated allegations.”
Terry Holub of the Diocese of Niagara, who has worked for Corrections Canada, said he was “fully supportive of the intent” of the resolution but that, as it stood, it was “practically unenforceable.”
Finn Keesmaat-Walsh of the Diocese of Toronto told of a friend who “went through hell at the hands of this church.” To see the final report of her case, the friend had to sign an NDA. The friend told Keesmaat-Walsh, “Don’t let them say they don’t use them. They do.”
“Victims need the freedom to speak about substantiated abuse,” said Sandra Fyfe, Bishop of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, who seconded the motion. “We don’t silence victims or protect abusers.” Reading from the background material, she said: “The misuse of NDAs to silence, suppress, or shield wrongdoing contradicts the Gospel.”
The motion was eventually referred to CoGS for priority review.
Youth
Two motions passed overwhelmingly to increase the involvement of youth (ages 16 to 24) in the councils of the church. The first was to endorse the creation of a National Youth Council to serve as an advisory board for CoGS. The second was to allow the election of two youth members per Ecclesiastical Province onto CoGS, which would raise the number of youth on the Council from four to eight. Those supporting the motion stressed the diversity of youth and the need to combat tokenism.
Creation Care
Environmentalists were pleased with two approved motions. The first was to encourage dioceses and individual Anglicans to “reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases … from their buildings to zero as quickly as possible, and as safely and realistically as possible, and by 2035 at the latest.”
It passed in a close vote (109-103) with this amendment: “And, be it resolved that this General Synod acknowledge the challenges present in remote communities, especially the North, and encourage dioceses with historic wealth obtained via fossil fuels investments to share that wealth to support this transition.”
The second motion asked that the Primate, on behalf of the denomination, sign a Letter for a Fossil Fuel Treaty. The proposed treaty lays out a binding global plan to end expansion of any new coal, oil, or gas production; phase out existing production of fossil fuels in a manner that is fair and equitable; and ensure a global just transition to full access to renewable energy globally. Over one third of the delegates thought it was an idealistic but not realistic plan for creation care. It passed 140 to 76.
A Provocative Open Letter
The final legislative hour of Synod involved a controversial resolution that encouraged every member of the denomination to sign the “Open Letter to the Canadian Government from the Queer Interfaith Coalition Requesting Support for the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community, reinforcing that the Anglican Church of Canada is a safe place for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.”
The letter speaks of “reclaiming the religious voice from those who have sought to weaponize faith. … We believe that every person is holy, every love and life is sacred, and that our faiths invite us to be more of who we are, not less. We call upon all people of faith to join us in denouncing the damaging heresy that some people are more deserving of equality than others.”
Youth delegate Hannah Wygiera, a Ph.D. student at the University of Calgary, asked if the ambiguous language about heresy might be understood as applying to Christians who hold a traditional view on marriage. She expressed her concerns about how the letter would affect ecumenical relationships.
Several Arctic delegates expressed their concerns, stipulating that there was no place for hate or violence. Bishop Jared Osborn (Arctic, Suffragan) submitted an amendment. Bishop Bruce Myers of Quebec echoed the concern about the use of the word heresy and supported the clarifying amendment.
After debate, Synod approved the amendment: “Affirms that nothing in the Open Letter is understood by General Synod to contradict the Theological affirmations of the ‘A Word to the Church’ document adopted by the General Synod A101-R1 (2019), in particular that the Open Letter’s language of heresy must not be interpreted as a condemnation of those Christians who do not believe scripture permits Holy Matrimony for [a] same-sex couple.”
With the amendment, the resolution passed 174-37.
Other Motions
One resolution passed at Synod included support for Canada’s 845,000 migrant farm workers. “The Good Samaritan didn’t ask for papers,” said the Rev. Enrique Martinez, director of the Huron Farmworkers Ministry.
Saying that “access is not inclusion,” and that a theology of disability needs to be taught, Jodie Porter of the Diocese of Niagara presented a resolution to initiate “dissemination and study of the principles of ability and inclusion, building on the 10 Tenets of Disability Theology,” as found in The Disabled God by Nancy Eiesland.
COGS is to report to the next meeting of the General Synod. Several delegates said that while they could affirm aspects of the tenets, there were other aspects that raised biblical and theological concerns, including the eschatological claim of the eighth tenet on Eschatology and Resurrection, which questions “the assumption that disability will be ‘fixed’ in the afterlife.”
Other approved motions included:
- declaring the last Sunday in July Emancipation Sunday in recognition of the contribution of Black Anglicans in the denomination and to counter anti-Black racism;
- requesting more clarity on abstention votes in primatial elections;
- establishing a reasonable limit for transactions that are not accounted for in General Synod’s approved budget;
- practices for a restored vocational diaconate;
- support for those “in the Land of the Holy One”;
- and a request that the Primate urge the Canadian Prime Minister to enforce an arms embargo on Israel.
Sue Careless is senior editor of The Anglican Planet and author of the series Discovering the Book of Common Prayer: A Hands-On Approach. She is based in Toronto.
