December 18th, 2007
Posted in Anglican Network in Canada, Canada
Rev’d. Ken Harding, Athabasca, Alberta, CA
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/12/18/why-the-ordinations-in-abbotsford-are-valid/#more-2590
In most of our cases (certainly mine) the same families have built successively on our church sites for generations. In my case it was a tent first, serving the natives and the fur trappers, then a log church built on land donated by the Hu dson’s Bay Company, then a clapboard church, then a cinderblock and concrete building. Generations of work and emotional investment have gone into those buildings, and the history is recent enough to still be relatively current in the stories of the community.
To walk away from all that is undeniably difficult because these buildings are not just deposits of institutional history, but of very personal history, and given the significant proportion of elderly among my congregation it is perhaps unreasonable to expect the community to walk away, or to divide. They don’t and won’t accept the ACoC position on matters, but neither will they leave their building and the pew they have sat in for the whole of their lives or abandon old Mrs. Soenso whose grandfather chopped the logs for the church, whose uncle sawed the lumber, whose husband helped build the church. Trying to uphold the validity and jurisdictional appropriateness of the leadership and ministry of Bishops Harvey and Harding seems important to me, given these considerations. It’s not just a matter of theology, or of politics, but of helping to make clear the claims on our richer, deeper Anglican heritage.
A number of statements have been made by bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada regarding the ministry of Bishops Harvey and Harding who are now serving under the Primatial authority of Archbishop Gregory Venables and the extended jurisdiction of the Southern Cone. Statements have also been made by some of them regarding the validity of ordinations and the ministry of those who may subsequently be received into the Province of the Southern Cone.
Quote: » Bishop Ingham said he has also written to the two candidates “to say that their ordinations, if they proceeded, would not be recognized within the Anglican Church of Canada or within the Anglican Communion.” « (Source “Bishop protests unauthorized ordinations”, Marites N. Sison, Anglican Journal staff writer, Nov. 20, 2007 http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/bishop-protests-unauthorized-ordinations/)
Quote: “When any member of the clergy relinquishes the exercise of ministry, he or she relinquishes ministry in the entire Anglican Communion.” (source Retiring Bishop Victoria Matthews, “Pastoral Letter” to the Diocese of Edmonton, Nov. 23, 2007)
Quote: » “Any ministry exercised in Canada by those received into the Province of the Southern Cone after voluntarily relinquishing the exercise of their ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada is inappropriate, unwelcome and invalid.” « (Source “Pastoral Letter” from the Primates and Metropolitans of the Anglican Church of Canada, Nov. 29, 2007)
It seems to me that these statements are reactionary, made without adequate reflection on the tradition, history and theology of Anglican ordination. As such it seems to me that they serve more to confuse and to harass than to inform or to provide pastoral care and wisdom.
There are two distinct issues here. The first one is the question of validity, and the second one is the question of jurisdiction. Regrettably, in these comments the bishops have mashed these two distinct issues together and have thereby increased the confusion for Canadian Anglicans. I wish to attempt to clarify some of this confusion.
Anglican orders historically are valid and in correct apostolic succession because they have been passed down unbroken from validly ordained and consecrated bishops to validly ordained and consecrated bishops from the undivided Church to the present. In the midst of exceptional circumstances during the time of the Anglican Reformation concerns about jurisdiction took a back seat as exceptional measures were taken to respond to the exceptional circumstances and the urgent needs of the Church. This becomes our model for the present exceptional circumstances.
In traditional Anglican ordinations clergy are ordained into the Church, period. That is the official wording of ordinations in the BCP of every Anglican jurisdiction. As I was told during one ordination retreat, this means that all ordinations are valid throughout the Anglican Communion, because we are ordained into the whole Church. The Anglican Church of Canada (in those bygone days) was acting validly and rightly as an agent on behalf of the entire Communion, and the bishop (Reginald Hollis in my case) was acting as a valid representative of the whole Church. I was solemnly told that my responsibility was to the whole Church and that I would be accountable for my vows to the whole Church as well as to Christ Himself as the Head of the Church. It was clearly and solemnly stressed that I was not simply accountable to my diocesan bishop, nor even to the Anglican Church of Canada, but to the entire Communion from which my diocesan bishop derived his validity. (I draw attention to the Windsor Report 124) It appears to me that some bishops have lost sight of their responsibility to the whole Communion and to the Church entire and choose instead to see no farther than their local situation.
It is my understanding that Bishops Harvey and Harding relinquished their ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada, but not in the Church as a whole. Bishops Harvey and Harding did not renounce their vows or terminate their service to the Church, they remain validly ordained and consecrated bishops. Bishops Harvey and Harding correctly and appropriately transferred from one jurisdiction to another within the Anglican Communion in order to keep their vows more faithfully and to perform their episcopal ministry more effectively.
The Anglican Church of Canada is a jurisdiction whose status within the Communion has been reduced by the request that it voluntarily withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council, one of the four instruments of unity in the Anglican Communion. The request to withdraw from one of the instruments of unity was made because of Canada’s departure from the Communion’s standards of belief and practice and because of the unrepentant attitudes of the Canadian Church’s governing bodies. It is a strong message that we are not in full and good standing in the Anglican Communion.
This request has been accompanied by clear statements from a number of the Communion’s Primates that they and their Province are in a state of broken or impaired communion with us.
Bishops Harvey and Harding validly transferred from the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church of Canada into the jurisdiction of the Southern Cone in order to serve Anglicans who can neither accept the Canadian Church’s departures from the Communion’s official standards of belief and practice nor abide the reduced status of the Canadian Church within the Communion. By doing this Bishops Harvey and Harding provide valid episcopal ministry to Canadians who wish to remain in full communion with Anglicans throughout the world and who wish to maintain the official standards of belief and practice of the Anglican Communion worldwide. Any ordinations or any other Episcopal ministry performed by Bishops Harvey and Harding are therefore valid.
This brings us to the question of jurisdiction. Under normal circumstances all bishops (except some Primates) serve primarily as the spiritual leader of a diocese. The diocese is the geographical and jurisdictional region within which a bishop exercises their ministry and authority. Under normal circumstances no bishop crosses uninvited into another’s jurisdictional region to exercise any ministry or authority. However, for the past several years we have had ample evidence that we are in the midst of extraordinary circumstances and that given these extraordinary circumstances special measures must be taken. These measures were not taken lightly or frivolously, but only after many unsuccessful attempts over a five year period to address the underlying matters and only after long and serious deliberations about possible solutions at the highest levels of the Communion.
The circumstances are indeed extraordinary. Without reviewing at length what has already been well established it suffices to remind readers that in 2003, 2005 and 2007 the Meetings of the Primates, another of the instruments of unity in the Communion, all noted that the Anglican Church of Canada had departed from the standards of belief and practice upheld by the Anglican Communion, as did the Communion’s Windsor Report, released in 2004. Those standards were established by the Communion at Lambeth, another of the instruments of unity in the Communion, in 1998, and those standards have been repeatedly articulated and upheld at every subsequent Meeting of the Primates as they addressed Canada’s departures from those Communion standards.
At those Primates’ Meetings Canada was urged to refrain from what they were doing and to return to the traditions and standards of belief and practice of the Anglican Communion. Each time Canada signalled its disrespect for the Anglican Communion by continuing to pursue their innovative agendas. From a Canadian perspective these circumstances are all the more dire because the constitutional and foundational statement of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Solemn Declaration (BCP viii) requires that the Anglican Church of Canada remain in full communion with “… the Church of England throughout the world…” (meaning the Anglican Communion) and uphold the standards of doctrine and practice of that Communion. Since we have been found to have departed from the Communion’s standards of doctrine and practice, asked to withdraw from one of the instruments of unity (the ACC) and since a number of the Communion’s Primates have declared that they are in broken or impaired communion with the Anglican Church of Canada we are in some degree in breach of our own constitutional statement.
This is certainly an extraordinary set of circumstances. The fact that Canada has ignored the repeated requests to return to the standards of doctrine and practice held by the Anglican Communion and the clear indications that our behaviour has imperiled the unity of the Communion has caused great distress to many Anglicans within Canada and across the Communion. Many Canadians feel that they can no longer serve with faithfulness and integrity in a jurisdiction which has so flagrantly departed from Anglican orthodoxy.
This, combined with mounting evidence that the Anglican Church of Canada has no intention to return to the Communion’s standards of belief and practice, has prompted an extraordinary response from the Communion. With the support of Primates representing a majority of the Communion’s membership several Primates extended their jurisdictional authority and episcopal oversight to distressed Anglicans in Canada and the United States. The actions of those Primates were and are irregular and extraordinary, but they were and are valid. They were made necessary by the actions of the Churches in Canada and the United States who departed from Communion norms and practices, and by the inaction of their bishops when they were called upon to restore and uphold the standards of Anglicanism.
These facts are recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, another of the four instruments of unity in the Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury agreed with and signed each of the statements made by the Primates’ Meetings which identified Canada’s departure from Communion standards and called for a return to those standards. In September of 2007 Archbishop Gregory Venables met and consulted with the Archbishop of Canterbury and presented a plan to offer a single extension of jurisdictional authority and Primatial oversight rather than continue with the earlier patchwork of Primatial interventions. While a consultation does not automatically mean that the Archbishop of Canterbury endorsed the plan, it is significant that after the consultation he is reported to have acknowledged that it seemed sensible. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2843228.ece)
The single extension of jurisdictional authority begins to tidy up the previous patchwork quilt and prepare for a new Anglicanism in North America which will be fully recognized by the instruments of unity in the Anglican Communion. The valid transfers of Bishops Harvey and Harding into the jurisdiction of the Southern Cone have been approved and even applauded by a number of the Primates. Since Bishops Harvey and Harding validly transferred out of a jurisdiction with a reduced status into a jurisdiction with a full status in order to more faithfully fulfill their episcopal ministry, and since there was full consultation with the instruments of unity, everything appears to have been done “decently and in order”.
All this being the case, there can be no legitimate argument against either the validity or the appropriateness of either the episcopal ministry of Bishops Harvey and Harding nor the ordinations on Dec. 2, 2007. There may be consternation amongst the Canadian and U.S. bishops at the uninvited crossing of jurisdictional boundaries, but those irregular actions were made necessary by the inappropriate actions of the Canadian and U.S. Churches and the extraordinary circumstances that resulted.
They created the circumstances that brought about the irregular but completely valid actions of Archbishop Venables and Bishops Harvey and Harding. There was ample warning of what would take place, and both Canada and the U.S. were involved in all the meetings. It seems both shallow and hypocritical of them to complain now that the ministry of Bishops Harvey and Harding are unwanted; and it is patently untrue to claim that they are inappropriate and invalid. What may we conclude then of statements like those referred to at the outset? Only that they are regrettable, made in haste, in a reactionary manner, and do not stand up under close scrutiny.
