From Religious Intelligence
Tuesday, 9th September 2008. 4:47pm
By George Conger
The Lambeth ceasefire has collapsed in Canada after the Diocese of New Westminster moved to reassert “control” over two conservative congregations who had broken with Bishop Michael Ingham to join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC).
On Aug 26 the Dean and Chancellor of New Westminster, acting on behalf of the vacationing Bishop Ingham, invoked the Canadian Church’s Canon 15 and sought to dismiss the wardens and parochial trustees of two parishes: St Matthew’s Abbotsford and St Matthias & St Luke in Vancouver, replacing them with nominees loyal to the diocese.
The diocese had taken these steps “to remove clergy who have left the Anglican Church of Canada rather than accepting the decisions of its local and national governing bodies,” a press statement said.
In February the parishes voted to quit the diocese and join ANiC and accept the oversight of the Province of the Southern Cone. Bishop Ingham refused to recognize the secession and on May 29 sent demand letters to the parish clergy ordering them to leave.
New Westminster Chancellor George Cadman stated he hoped the “former clergy will now decide to leave voluntarily and that resort to the courts will be unnecessary.”
Litigation between ANiC congregations and the dioceses of British Columbia and Niagara commenced earlier this year, following the first round of parish secessions. In May an Ontario court ordered three breakaway congregations to share the use of their property with the Diocese of Niagara pending a final determination.
The parishioners of St Mary of the Incarnation, Victoria, on Vancouver Island in the Diocese of British Columbia also voted earlier this year to quit the diocese and join ANiC. A court denied their claim for summary possession of the parish property noting the congregation had not “established a strong case that they and their fellow parishioners who have elected to join [ANiC] are the beneficial owners of church property because they represent true Anglicans and the remaining parishioners do not.”
Chancellor Cadman argued the New Westminster parishes’ attempts to quit the diocese also would not survive a legal challenge. “In the past few months, the Courts in both BC and Ontario have issued preliminary findings in similar cases upholding similar actions by two other Dioceses, one on Vancouver Island and one in the Niagara area. Attempts to appeal those rulings in both cases have been unsuccessful and costs have been awarded to the Dioceses involved,” he said.
While the British Columbia courts found for the diocese in the St Mary’s case, legal analysts note New Westminster may not have be so fortunate. Title to the property of St Mary’s was held by the Diocese of British Columbia, and the congregation argued that the diocese’s support of recent doctrinal innovations no longer made it “Anglican.” The parish wardens and trustees of the two former New Westminster congregations hold title to their property.
“Whether the Diocese of New Westminster has the right to unilaterally replace these duly elected trustees, and move to seize control of the parishes’ assets is in dispute,” ANiC Chancellor Cheryl Chang said.
The trustees of the two parishes “are meeting and seeking legal advice regarding their response to the Diocese,” she said, noting “with interest” the diocese moved against only two of the four congregations that had gone over to ANiC, concentrating on the smaller and poorer two first.
On Aug 29 St John’s Shaughnessy, Canada’s largest Anglican parish and one of the two former New Westminster congregations not mentioned in the Aug 26 letter from the diocese, declared its support for the two parishes.
They found it ironic the diocese initiated action against the two parishes released a statement “on the same day that the Archbishop of Canterbury released his Pastoral Letter to all Bishops of the Anglican Communion reflecting on the recent Lambeth conference saying, ‘the chief need of our Communion at the moment was the rebuilding of relationships – the rebuilding of trust in one another – and of confidence in our Anglican identity... How far the intensified sense of belonging together will help mutual restraint in such matters remains to be seen. But it can be said that few of those who attended left without feeling they had in some respects moved and changed’."
Dr Williams’ “optimism” that the communion’s warring parties would exercise restraint, seeking to serve a higher purpose than their own short term political or legal needs, now appeared “unfounded,” they said.
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