While GAFCON/FOCA continues to insist it is not a separatist group, it’s certainly seeking to promote it. They seek not the unity of the Anglican Communion, but unity with like-minded malcontents.
Thousands of traditionalist Anglicans are expected to attend the July 6 launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, but organizers have emphasized that it is not schismatic.
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The event chairman, the Rev Paul Perkin, emphasized that “this is not the start of a new Church. Everybody’s determined to cast this as a separatist movement — this is not a separatist movement. We are not seceding, this is not schismatic.
“It is precisely the opposite of separation, the purpose is unity and mission. The focus of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is of unity, solidarity, and support of the majority of the Anglican Communion.”
Prominent traditionalist Anglicans will gather for the event from across the Communion. Speakers will include the President of Forward in Faith North America, Bishop Keith Ackerman, the secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Archbishop Peter Jensen, and the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali.
Seven [sic. – looks like five to us, but this later report clears things up] primates: Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda; along with the Rt. Rev. Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney (Australia) began talks on April 14 at hotel near Heathrow airport.
Joining the archbishops in the three-day meeting are the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh in the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone [ed. – no.] and the archbishop-designate of the ACNA; the Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth in the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone [ed. – no.]; the Rt. Rev. Charles Murphy; the leader of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA); the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America and one of his bishops suffragan, the Rt. Rev. David Anderson; the Rt. Rev. John Guernsey, Provincial Bishop Suffragan for the Anglican Church of Uganda; the Rt. Rev. Bill Atwood, Bishop of All Saints Diocese in the Anglican Church of Kenya; and the Rt. Rev. Don Harvey, leader of the Anglican Network in Canada.
Details of the meeting will be made public at a press conference on April 16, according to a spokesman for the archbishops, but participants told The Living Church the group, which is meeting as the GAFCON (Global Anglican Futures Conference) primates’ council….
One clarification: The guests at this meeting of the GAFCON council are actually the hosts, the men without whose money the schism would not be possible.
The group plans an April 16th news conference. It is discussing the formation of ACNA and FOCA, the proposed Anglican Covenant, and divisions within the communion that it has helped to foment. Recall that a leader of the American Anglican Council who is a member of panel of bishops and lawyers who have drafted canons for the ACNA recently said, “Like Special Forces, we go behind the scenes and we blow up things.” Of course he also said, “We do not believe that Canterbury will recognize us [ACNA], at least while the current archbishop is still in office.” (More about the American Anglican Council and its funding here.)
Personalities aside, under the current canons of the communion ACNA could not be recognized as a province without the consent of the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church.