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News and Ideas from around the Anglican World |
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January 2007
Andrew Hutchison, Primate of Canada Photo: CPM
TAP: You have been extremely busy visiting Anglicans in 29 out of 30 dioceses across the country. From your travels what do you see taking place in the Anglican Church of Canada? Primate: I see tremendous variety across the country. I see very encouraging signs of life and hope: I see it in large urban centres; I see it in small rural centres; I see it in Native communities. At the same time, I see enormous struggle, people dealing with very limited resources and huge opportunities.
TAP: The ACC seems to be facing hard times with parish closings, plunging attendance and diminishing financial resources. What will the church look like in 20 years? Primate: We have a governance task force working to see that we are delivering ministry and executing our mission in as cost-effective a way as possible. Many of our diocesan boundaries were laid out along canoe routes and we have never revisited that. I’d see a structurally smaller church, I hope, though, growing in numbers as well as in faith.
TAP: To some it seems that our Bishops and the church generally have lost the ability to discuss, dialogue and debate theologically and instead speak the language of other disciplines such as sociology, psychology and anthropology. Is this a fair assessment? And if so how would you explain it? Primate: Well I think that is always a danger. Through the 1960s in particular, the church was invited to open itself to other disciplines and theological education was set in the context of multi-disciplinary institutions. I hope that in the process we haven’t lost our theology. The advent of the Primate’s Theological Commission was one deliberate step to guard against that. The present crisis in the church has been a gift in that it draws us back to both Scripture and theology.
TAP: The Council of General Synod has not yet recommended a procedure for acting on the St. Michael and Windsor Reports and the deferred motion. How should these critical issues be handled or what should be the standard for changing the church’s teaching?Primate: We’ve turned that over to the Windsor Response Group to look at how this can most effectively and helpfully come before General Synod. We had one question pretty well fixed from COGS--a resolution that the Synod concur that the blessing of same-gender relationships is, in fact, a matter of doctrine, although not core doctrine. So that will be proposed as a resolution. Next is the lifting from the table [of] the motion from the Synod of ’04 that effectively would give local option a possibility. Just how that will be dealt with is an open question but it must be dealt with because the motion was deferred from the previous Synod. I suspect one option is once again to refer the matter because of the conclusion [that] this is doctrine and therefore should be referred back to a committee to look at the whole canon on marriage.
TAP: If General Synod decides that this is a decision that falls in the domain of General Synod, will New Westminster be asked to desist from same-gender blessings? Primate: New Westminster, as I understand it, has said through its bishop that it will be bound by the decision of General Synod.
TAP: Looking back at TEC’s General Convention last summer and seeing the attempts made at compliance there, and how that was received broadly in the church, what do you think compliance to the Windsor Report will need to look like at General Synod? Primate: The word “compliance” is misleading, because this [the Windsor Report] was never offered as something that the church needed to comply with. This was offered as a process document to help us find a way forward and to express the fullest level of communion we can in view of our differences. I am irritated by expressions like “Windsor-compliant” dioceses; it was never set down as a law or a standard.
TAP: In terms then of expressing the fullest possible level of communion in the future? Primate: One of the most helpful things that has come out of that whole discussion is the notion of a covenant. I am not as enthusiastic about a covenant as such as I am of the process which will lead towards that covenant. This will be a careful and extensive conversation in our church and in the life of the Communion before we can arrive at a covenant and invite people to sign it. I think that represents the best possible way forward and is one of the best outcomes of the Windsor Report.
TAP: Should the ACC choose, in the language of the Windsor Report, “to walk apart” from the Anglican Communion, where does that leave our Clergy who in their Ordination Vows pledged allegiance and membership to the Communion through the Solemn Declaration of 1893?Primate: First of all the ACC will never choose to walk apart from the Anglican Communion. That is absolutely clear. We are committed to the Communion and were instrumental in establishing at least two of the instruments of unity within the Anglican Communion: the Lambeth Commission and the Anglican Consultative Council. We have been enormously supportive of it in terms of resources and personnel, throughout the years, so there is no question whatever, of this church ever walking apart from the Anglican Communion. If some members of the Communion choose to walk from the Anglican Church of Canada, that is a different question.
TAP: If the Archbishop of Canterbury should determine, on behalf of the Anglican Communion, that the ACC has chosen to walk apart from the Communion, and can no longer enjoy full membership in the Communion, what could be done then for those Communion-minded clerics? Primate: We will have to see how all that evolves. The next great question is the Lambeth Conference of 2008. There are those who are saying it is time for the Archbishop of Canterbury to sit in judgment as to who is worthy to attend the conference and who isn’t. It is his call. It is an invitation gathering and he will invite whomever he chooses. He has cautioned, however, that if we ever get down to that sorting process there will be people at both ends of the spectrum who will be excluded, for good reason. My hope is that everybody will be invited to that conference and then various provinces will decide whether they wish to answer that invitation or not. Going back to the Primate’s meeting in Dromantine, [in Feb. 2005] there were 14 Primates who would not set foot in that chapel because the American Presiding Bishop and I were in that chapel. I think if that sort of thing were to happen, it would be very sad. Please understand that it is not a question of North America versus the rest of the Anglican Communion. I think if you were to canvas primates and provinces you would find a great deal of support for some of the things that are happening in North America--specifically the Canadian conversation. We are not in the same place as the United States. We are a church that is in conversation, as we were asked to be in 1988 and 1998, by the Lambeth Conference. We’ve entered into that conversation, and that is treated with great respect by a lot of the primates, even those who may disagree with where the conversation seems to be leading.
TAP: If the ACC, through this conversation, were to determine not to go ahead with same-sex blessings, will some provision be made for those dioceses and parishes who feel convicted to go ahead? Primate: That is a point where the Shared Episcopal Ministry Document might come into play. It was designed for conservative people who felt their diocese had gone too far. But we are also hearing now from the more liberal side of the discussion saying “Well if that claim can be made by conservatives, it can also be made by liberals.” But that has not yet been put to the test. But you raise a very good point that in the life of this church we may need to think long and hard about how we provide for those who dissent from a decision of General Synod not to bless same-sex unions. England has gone another route for 30 years now. Clergy very regularly bless same-gender relationships. Archbishop Williams is well aware of it, as is their House of Bishops. But what [the clergy] say is that “This is not official,” “It’s not an authorised rite,” “It is all pastoral exception,” and “Anyone can say prayers with anyone.” Well that is not the Canadian way. If anything unofficial happens in Canada, immediately that priest is censured and admonished. That has never happened in England; they proceed with this with impunity and don’t check it at all. In Canada it is either authorised or not, and you don’t play with the in-between. If Synod were to make a firm decision not to move on this, perhaps, some people will look to the English example and say “If they can behave this way, perhaps we can too.”
TAP: What advice would you give the next primate? Primate: I would say listen very carefully to the wide variety of concern within the life of the church. And do not hesitate to be yourself.
TAP: Do you have any final message for TAP readers? Primate: Only to say the more one learns about this church and its history, the more one values the richness of its tradition, the depth of its faith, and its contribution to the extension of the Gospel throughout the world. I hope and pray that Anglicans across Canada will continue to recognise and affirm the value of this precious Anglican tradition and not let it disappear from the scene altogether. Part of that tradition is one of tolerance and inclusion. It has had to be that ever since the Puritan Controversy, and my hope and prayer is that we will not lose that generosity of spirit that has been so inclusive and definitive of who we are throughout our history.
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Copyright The Anglican Planet © 2007 |