Emerging Anglican Province announces 28 dioceses

http://www.anglicanessentials.ca/wordpress/index.php/2009/04/25/anglican-church-in-north-america-news-release/

[Anglican Essentials Canada] 27 Apr 2009--Leaders representing Canadian and US orthodox Anglican jurisdictions approved applications for membership of 28 dioceses and dioceses-in-formation and finalized plans for launching the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Twelve Anglican organizations are uniting to form the ACNA.

The ACNA Leadership Council, in addition to accepting these dioceses as constituent members, finalized a draft constitution and a comprehensive set of canons (Church bylaws) for ratification by the provincial assembly. A list of the new dioceses, the constitution and the canons will be available at www.united-anglicans.org.

The Provincial Assembly is not actually a “synod.” Under the provisional ACNA constitution it has extremely limited powers. It elects the Provincial Council and ratifies the canons and constitutional amendments that the Provincial Council adopts. If the ACNA Governance Task Force’s two proposed amendments related to the Provincial Council were adopted at the Fort Worth/Dallas meeting, it has even less powers. These amendments changed the composition of the Provincial Council and took away from the Provincial Assembly the power to elect the Provincial Council. Except for ratifying the legislative acts of the Provincial Council, the Provincial Assembly primarily serves as a periodic mission conference of the ACNA like the Winter Conference of the AMiA.

I am surprised that the Anglican Network in Canada accepted the reduced status of an ACNA diocese. Under the provisional constitution and proposed code of canons of the ACNA an ACNA diocese does not choose its own bishops. The ACNA College of Bishops chooses the bishops of an ACNA diocese. The diocese may nominate two or three candidates for the office of bishop for the consideration of the College of Bishops. However, the College of Bishops is not required to select one of these candidates. The provisional constitution and proposed code of canons do not prohibit the College of Bishops from choosing its own candidate instead of one of the diocese’s candidates. If the College of Bishops rejects a diocese’s candidates, the proposed code of canons makes no provision for the diocese to nominate additional candidates. As the proposed code of canons is worded, the parent Province of an ACNA diocese that is also an extraterritorial jurisdiction of a Province outside of North America can play a substantial role in the nomination process and even one person such as in the case of the AMiA Primatial Vicar can have the final say in who is nominated by the diocese. US bishops dominate the ACNA College of Bishops and US bishops will be selecting the bishops of the Canadian dioceses of the ACNA. I would have thought that the Anglican Network in Canada would have sought special status as a sub-province of the ACNA with its own synod and full power and authority to elect its own bishops and to confirm their election.

The ACNA provisional constitution and proposed code of canons contains provisions that are a serious barrier to the participation of two groups of orthodox North American Anglicans in the ACNA—classical evangelical Anglicans who do not subscribe to the Anglo-Catholic position on the historic episcopate adopted by the ACNA in its fundamental declarations and orthodox Anglicans who value the autonomy of the diocese, especially the long tradition of North American dioceses electing their own bishops, and a synodical form of church government.

I would like to examine the finalized draft of the ACNA constitution and code of canons. The provisional constitution and proposed code of canons had a substantial number of problems. A detailed analysis of these problems can be found on the Internet at http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/04/acna-provisional-constitution-blueprint.html , http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/04/acna-draft-canons-analysis-of-their.html , and http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/04/acna-draft-canons-analysis-of-their_18.html .

This analysis was submitted to acting ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan and the ACNA Governance Task Force with a number of proposed changes to these documents. I would be interested to see if the finalized draft of the constitution and code of canons address these problems.

I checked the new United Anglicans web site but it is still under construction.