Source: Vancouver Sun, Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER - A South American Anglican archbishop who adamantly opposes homosexual relationships is coming to Vancouver on Friday despite being told to stay away by Canada's top Anglican.
Archbishop Gregory Venables, who claims to represent 15 breakaway Anglican congregations in Canada, will speak Friday at a gathering in Delta of the conservative Anglican Network in Canada.
Venables, who has been criticized as a rogue archbishop by Anglican colleagues in South America and elsewhere, is recruiting Anglican congregations in Canada and the U.S. that have opposed the ordination of homosexuals and the church blessing of their relationships.
In a public letter to Venables released yesterday, Canadian primate Fred Hiltz calls his visit a "breach in what is considered normative in protocol among primates and bishops throughout the Communion."
He says the visit will “further harm the strained relations” between the Canadian church and ANiC and points out that arrangements have been made for alternative episcopal oversight for Canadian Anglicans who disagree with their bishop over “matters of human sexuality.”
But Archbishop Venables told the Globe and Mail yesterday, "I am going to meet with people who are no longer members of the Anglican Church in Canada. They left the Anglican Church in Canada. Therefore, my meeting with them is of no concern to the Anglican Church in Canada. I go to attend to friends."
Venables, the primate -- or ranking archbishop -- of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, has been an increasing annoyance to Canadian Anglican leaders since he invited congregations unhappy with the church over issues such as fully inclusive affiliation of homosexuals.
The 77-million-member world Anglican Communion comprises 38 autonomous provinces, or regional and national churches, under the titular leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The communion has become increasingly fractured over the past couple of years – primarily around the issue of acceptance of homosexuals – with the Canadian and U.S. churches on one side, the far more numerous churches of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean on the other, and the Australian, New Zealand, British, Irish and South African churches somewhat divided in the middle.
Between 15 and 20 Canadian congregations and their priests and two retired bishops have accepted Archbishop Venables's invitation.
Most of them have come together under the organizational umbrella of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), which has planned a national conference in Vancouver on Friday and Saturday.
Vancouver-area Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham has been a key figure in the worldwide Anglican rift, after approving of the blessing of same-sex relationships in 2002, making him the first Anglican bishop in the world to openly do so.
St. John's Shaughnessy Anglican Church, one of the largest Anglican congregations in Canada, voted in February to leave the Canadian denomination to operate under the ecclesiastical authority of Venables.
St. John's was joined later the same month by other breakaway congregations in B.C. and across Canada, including St. Matthew's in Abbotsford and St. Mary of the Incarnation near Victoria.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican communion, has condemned conservative Anglican bishops from South America, Southeast Asia and Africa who have been intervening in the affairs of their more liberal Anglican colleagues in Britain and North America.
Last month the Anglican primate for Brazil, Mauricio Andrade, accused Venables of showing a "disrespectful and arrogant attitude" for secretly entering his ecclesiastical region and actively supporting "dissident" Anglican priests.
Full article: Archbishop against gay unions ignores plea to stay out of Canada | Vancouver Sun
Anglican primate blasts South American rival | Globe and Mail