The Anglican Journal of Canada reports on the meeting and plans of the breakaway Anglican Network of Canada. According to the article by Solange de Santis, they see themselves as the true Anglican Church in North America along with their US partners in Common Cause. A fund of over $1,000,000 is being amassed for lawsuits.
“We have the higher goal of becoming a parallel province in North America,” said Rev. Trevor Walters of the Vancouver-based diocese of New Westminster. He noted that a meeting of bishops last September “outlined a 15-month timetable to create a separate ecclesiastical structure in North America” that could replace the Anglican Church of Canada or the Episcopal Church in the U.S.
The Network also has a potential $1-million legal fund, which it could use to defend congregations that want to leave the Canadian church and retain their buildings and property.
“There is a group of people in Vancouver who have committed to underwrite a fund of $1 million, but it is my belief that we may need to raise a lot more than that if we need to defend this up to the Supreme Court of Canada,” said Ms. Chang, a Vancouver-based lawyer and a member of its legal team. She said she could not identify the donors.
The network has about 500 individual members and 16 member parishes, said Canon Charles Masters, national director of the network. The Anglican Church of Canada has about 2,800 congregations and 641,000 on parish rolls.
Read it all here.
Previous Lead article here.