The Anglican Journal reports that Bishop Michael Ingham, of the Vancouver-based diocese of New Westminster, has written to five members of the clergy who resigned from the Anglican Church of Canada that they may not exercise ministry at their churches, are considered to be trespassing if they are on the property and may not remove anything, including books.
Bishop Michael Ingham told Diocesan Synod, which met on May 30-31, that as bishop he has a responsibility to ensure that schism does not become normal or accepted in the Anglican Church of Canada.
In a report on May 30 to about 300 synod members, about a third clergy and the rest lay, the bishop insisted that the decision of four congregations to join the South American Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, was not simply “divorce” but “schism…the setting up of a unlawful authority” to challenge the rightful authority, which is Diocesan Synod.
“I am fully aware that nobody wishes to see the church diverted from its mission by the prospect of civil litigation over property,” he said.
“But schism cannot stand, for if it were allowed to stand it would undermine the mission of the church across this country.”
Chancellor George Cadman, the synod’s chief legal officer, reported that the clergy remaining in four parishes—St. John’s Shaughnessy, St. Matthew Abbotsford, and Good Shepherd and St. Matthias/St. Luke of Vancouver—have relinquished and abandoned ordained ministry within the Anglican Church of Canada, and by remaining in parish buildings they are now trespassing.
The Anglican Journal says:
Courts have ruled in the civil provinces of British Columbia and Ontario that dioceses must have access to the church properties, but no court has yet ruled on the question of ownership.
Bishop Ingham said that plans are “now in place” for “the restoration of the parishes after the litigation is successful,” however, no litigation has yet begun. He said the diocese would ensure that “parish buildings and other assets are preserved for present and future generations of Christians who wish to worship in the Anglican Church of Canada.”
According to coverage of the synod on the diocesan Web site, Geoffrey Burgess of St. Stephen, West Vancouver, said that members of the dissident parishes “must still be regarded as Anglicans” and should not be “turfed out of their parishes.”
Bishop Ingham responded that no members of congregations were affected and that the diocese’s complaint was with clergy who have rejected their bishop and synod’s authority.
Anglican Journal report here.
Diocese of New Westminster report here.
Read Bishop Ingham’s address to synod here.