Category Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

Anglican Church of Canada stands against antisemitism – sort of

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The Most Rev. Linda Nicholls has just released a statement claiming that the Anglican Church of Canada opposes antisemitism:

We must stand against antisemitism whenever we hear or see it. We stand in solidarity with Jewish people around the world who desire to live in safety and security without fear, as do all people.

But is this just doing what the church does best: virtue signaling?

In February, the ACoC urged Justin Trudeau to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza – by the IDF, of course, since ACoC has little concern whether Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel. This must be what Nicholls meant by “We stand in solidarity with Jewish people around the world”. Hang on, now I get it: stand in solidarity with Jewish people around the world, except those in Israel.

And, more recently in March, Nicholls signed a letter to the Canadian government rejoicing that Canada has reinstated UNWRA funding – a thoroughly antisemitic organization

Perhaps ACoC leaders are in a moral muddle and, lacking any functioning ethical or spiritual compass, are simply trying to keep everyone happy. Or perhaps they are antisemitic themselves and are trying to conceal it.

Anglican Church of Canada turns to Rome after running out of its own sophistry

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The Anglican Church of Canada, having run out of its own seemingly inexhaustible supply of sophistry, is looking to the Roman Catholic Church for inspiration in finding new ingenious ways to justify blessing same-sex marriages.

The Roman Catholic Church has demonstrated its enviable talent for casuistry in recent statements on same-sex marriage.

A same-sex blessing is blessing the person not the relationship. The fact that the two people in the same-sex marriage are being blessed together is purely coincidental; it has nothing to do with the relationship. Nothing at all.

Why didn’t we Anglicans think of that?

From here:

A document released by the Roman Catholic Church reconsidering its policy on blessings—including those to people in same-sex relationships—offers Anglicans a new way to think about divisions within their own communion, says the Rev. Iain Luke, principal of the Saskatoon-based College of Emmanuel and St. Chad and a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue.

The declaration Fiducia Supplicans, endorsed by Pope Francis on Dec. 18, lays out a shift in the Roman Catholic Church’s approach to blessings. It encourages clergy to offer blessings from the church to any who ask without first scrutinizing whether they are in compliance with the church’s doctrines or meet some moral standard.

When someone asks for a blessing, the document says, regardless of their marital or moral status, they are showing their openness to God’s love and assistance. “This request should, in every way, be valued, accompanied, and received with gratitude,” it states. “People who come spontaneously to ask for a blessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, the confidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone, their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines of this world, enclosed in its limitations.”

Though the new policy does not allow Roman Catholic priests to bless same-sex relationships, it does allow them to bless the people in them, whose relationship status would previously have been grounds for a priest to deny a blessing, says Luke. He compares this approach to that of the early days of Christianity in the first century AD.

Anglican Church of Canada revenues are dropping

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That makes it sound like a business, doesn’t it?

Contributions from the dioceses to the national church are dropping, creating, on one level, uncertainty, on another, certainty – that program and staff cuts are imminent.

In one of those rare moments of inadvertent prophetic truth uttered by an Anglican bishop, Linda Nicholls observed:

The church is likely to remain smaller and be less affluent than it once was, she said, but these things should not be taken as signs that it is ending or that it is no longer watched over by God.

God is indeed watching as each year the ACoC becomes more liberal and less Christian than the year before. That is why it is in the sad state it’s in today.

Frome here:

A drop in diocesan contributions to the national budget along with lingering financial uncertainty spurred a conversation about the long-term stability of the Anglican Church of Canada’s finances in a Nov. 24 session of the Council of General Synod (CoGS).

Amal Attia, the national church’s treasurer and CFO, presented figures that showed that as of Sept. 30, the church was experiencing a revenue shortfall of just over $600,000, attributable mostly to diocesan contributions running $724,728 less than budgeted. Contributions from dioceses are expected to pick up by the time the year’s numbers are finalized, she said, and a deficit of $153,667 is projected for the year.

While the 2023 deficit is projected to be small enough to be manageable, the decline in diocesan contributions is part of a trend of declining revenue in the church, which Attia warned will likely continue in the long run. In the short term, it has been possible to balance the gap with other revenue and by cutting expenses. And in case of a severe and unexpected shortfall, the church has a contingency fund it can dip into. But the size of that fund is limited, and the church may eventually need to make cuts to programming to compensate.

Meanwhile, she said, the 2024 budget is projected to break even partly through a reduction in total expenses from $10,666,325 expected for 2023 to $9,631,339 budgeted for 2024. The document Attia provided to CoGS for the 2024 budget forecasts that year’s diocesan contributions, which make up most of the national church’s revenue, to be $312,848 less than the projected total for 2023.

Later in the session, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, weighed in on the question of eventual program cuts at the national office.

Archbishop Linda Nicholls to retire by October 2024

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“I am discerning the exact date of my retirement”, she says.

Anglican clergy have difficulty deciding things, they have to discern them instead.

In this case, Nicholl’s precise retirement date is drifting somewhere in the ecclesiastical ether, wafting along, shrouded in clouds of incense waiting to be discerned.

It’s a bit like the second coming: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

From here:

Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has yet to decide on an exact retirement date, Council of General Synod (CoGS) heard Nov. 24.

“Given the decision at General Synod regarding the primacy, I’m sure there’s curiosity about the next steps,” Nicholls said in her opening remarks at the first meeting of the 2023-2025 CoGS. “I am discerning the exact date of my retirement. However, I can say that it will be before Oct. 1, 2024.”

At last summer’s General Synod, the church’s legislative body voted down a resolution that would have allowed any sitting primate to finish out their term if their 70th birthday fell less than one year before the next General Synod. As a result, Nicholls will be required to retire by her next birthday in October 2024, more than half a year before General Synod 2025.

When she discerns her retirement date, she told CoGS, she will write to the senior metropolitan, currently Archbishop Anne Germond of the ecclesiastical province of Ontario, who will consult with the other metropolitans, the prolocutor, deputy prolocutor and others to determine which metropolitan will serve as acting primate from then until the next General Synod.

Anglican Church of Canada supports Israel and Hamas ceasefire

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Bishops Linda Nicholls and Susan Johnson sent a letter to Justin Trudeau thanking him for supporting the recent UN resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

To state the obvious, Trudeau cares not a whit what Anglican and Lutheran bishops think about Middle Eastern wars. Israel and Hamas care even less. Still, it is only fitting that the ACoC is applauding this resolution from the UN, an organization that is only a little bit less corrupt than the ACoC itself.

Predictably, the letter goes on to excoriate Israel for its actions – which, by and large, do fall within the bounds prescribed by just war guidelines – while ignoring the savage murder, rape, torture, and mutilation of Israeli civilians by Hamas.

The letter ends with a plea for the one thing that would guarantee the absence of a “lasting peace”: a ceasefire before Hamas is destroyed.

Is the Anglican Church of Canada antisemitic, stupid or both?

From here:

We write today to express our thanks for Canada’s vote on December 12 to support the UN General Assembly Resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Though the resolution, with its additional demands, is not binding, the vote is significant for its moral weight and the glimmer of hope it represents for Israelis, Palestinians and the whole world.   We are grateful for Canada’s alignment with other nations to act now, as the President of the General Assembly said, ‘on one priority -only one- to save lives’. Canada’s recent pledge of $60 million dollars to the work of the UN Relief Works Agency in preparing and delivering aid shipments and other acts of compassion and care will certainly help in this catastrophic time.

We also join many other Canadians seeking your leadership in concrete, concurrent actions toward a permanent peace. We believe it is only through an end to the occupation and a just, comprehensive and lasting peace settlement that the security of both Palestinians and Israelis can be assured.

From decisions endorsed by our assembled church bodies in June 2023, we call upon the Government of Canada to:

  • take active leadership with other nations to end the illegal Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and West Bank since 1967, including settlement construction and expansion in these territories, and by challenging increasing settler violence, upon Palestinian persons and properties, with the full authority of international laws,
  • make strong commitments to protecting the human rights and safety of children and youth, to closely monitor and report on the treatment of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system, and on the increasing numbers of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories where a climate of impunity and an almost total lack of accountability persists, and
  • take leadership and support local women’s peace building initiatives as reflected in the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP)and National Action Plan of Women, Peace and Security.

As you know, the effects of the war are devastating, and a ceasefire is essential to addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to building a lasting peace. The members of our churches continue to earnestly pray for peace. Let us all take every opportunity to choose peace and work for peace.

The Anglican Church of Canada is Antisemitic

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It hates Jews.

I can think of no other rational explanation for the latest missive from the ACoC on the war in Gaza. It calls for a ceasefire before Hamas has been defeated and the kidnapped Israeli hostages have been released.

It ignores the fact that civilian casualties are being caused by cowardly Hamas terrorists using civilians as human shields.

It ignores the fact that Israel warns civilians that buildings are going to be bombed, advises them to leave and Hamas shoots them as they do.

It ignores the fact that Hamas houses its headquarters in hospitals, mosques, kindergartens and schools in order to cause maximum civilian casualties when attacked.

It believes civilian casualty numbers produced by cowardly terrorist thugs who allow no freedom of the press, no free elections, or free anything else, rather than numbers from the IDF, whose government has all of the above.

And it expresses no outrage over the deaths of Muslims in these conflicts. Why? Because no Jews are involved:

Ethiopian conflict: 395,000 – 800,000 cumulative deaths

Yemeni civil war: 377,000 deaths

Deaths at the hands of Boko Haram: 368,000

Deaths from the war in Syria: 350,000

The Anglican Church of Canada reserves an especially vitriolic hatred for Israel. It hates the fact that God chose Israel. It hates Jews.

From here:

Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

Thank you for writing yesterday and for your remarks in response to our letter of October 18th, in which we urged you to call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and for the opening of a humanitarian corridor to allow potable water, food, medical care and more to reach the people of Gaza.

Thank you for your decisions and statements made in recent days, reiterating the importance of both Israel and Hamas respecting international law, ensuring the swift and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid, and of protecting Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Thank you for evacuating Canadian citizens to safety.

Much has happened in the weeks since our last letter. The siege of Gaza has worsened, resulting in the deaths of more than 11,400 Gazans, including 4,700 children. All hospitals in Gaza City are now closed, as hundreds of thousands of people require medical care. More than one million Palestinians have now been forcibly displaced into smaller and smaller areas in southern Gaza, where humanitarian aid remains at critically low levels. Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has increased dramatically, and East Jerusalamites live in fear and danger of racist attacks, including assaults upon Christians and Church leaders.

Anglican church of Canada has a Transgender Day of Remembrance

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On November the 20th.

Is this to remember the thousands of children irreversibly mutilated in body mind and spirit to appease the insane god of gender confusion worshipped by half-witted Anglican bishops?

Of course not. It’s to “invite repentance for the words and actions of transphobia perpetuated in our society and in our churches.”

You can read all about it here; that is if you manage to get past the gibberish in the first paragraph without falling victim to debilitating brain fog:

At the heart of the gospel is the truth that we created [sic] in the image of God. In every human being, the divine is present. As we grow from children to adults, we are shaped by many factors – family, culture, geography and faith – including our discovery of how we will live into the call of the image of God we are gifted with. In every generation, cultural expectations and gender definitions interact with the image of God, sometimes affirming and sometimes undermining the unconditional love of each human being in all our diversity.

The anti-Israel bias of the Anglican Church of Canada

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On October the 17th, the Anglican Church of Canada issued the following statement condemning the murder of Jews by Hamas:

On Saturday the world watched in horror as Hamas launched a rapid, devastating barrage of violence against Israel. Rockets, drone attacks, the killing of civilians and the taking of hostages have ignited long simmering tensions between Israel and Palestine. Israel has responded with ongoing rocket attacks and the death toll on all sides rises daily.

On October the 18th, the ACoC wrote a letter to Justin Trudeau demanding respect for international law in Gaza. This was provoked by the bombing of the Al Ahli Arab hospital which is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. Unlike the devastating barrage of violence in the prior statement, the bombing fell into the much worse category of a crime against humanity. Because it was not aimed at Jews.

The Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, in one deft move, have not only demonstrated their anti-Jewish bias, but collectively shot themselves in the foot: the rocket that destroyed the hospital was fired by Hamas.

From here:

In the strongest terms, the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem condemns this atrocious attack that has transpired in the heart of Gaza. Initial reports suggest the loss of countless lives, a manifestation of what can only be described as a crime against humanity. Hospitals, by the tenets of international humanitarian law, are sanctuaries, yet this assault has transgressed those sacred boundaries. We heed the call of Archbishop Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury), who implored for the safeguarding of medical facilities and the rescission of evacuation orders. Regrettably, Gaza remains bereft of safe havens……… An urgent appeal resonates for the international community to fulfill its duty in protecting civilians and ensuring that such inhumane horrific acts are not replicated.

Contrasting prayers during wartime

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The first is a combined effort from the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada:

God of peace and justice,
Our hearts weep as the rockets fall in Israel and Gaza,
As families are bereaved
As men, women and children are taken hostage,
As anger and hatred are fuelled again.

In the land you chose for your people and your Son we pray
for those bereaved by the violence,
For the wounded and injured,
For the hostages
That your love will surround and comfort them.

We pray for strength and compassion
for all offering medical care, especially our partners, the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital
and Augusta Victoria Hospital.

We pray for Bishop Sani Azar and Archbishop Hosam Naoum and all Christians in the Holy Land for their safety and their leadership in this time of crisis.

We pray for all leaders in Israel and Palestine that a just and lasting peace will be found.

In the midst of our grief and sorrow we trust in your unfailing love for all people, and
for your Land, and ask that your wisdom would prevail, for we ask in the name of

Jesus Christ, who brings the world eternal peace.

In contrast, here is Archbishop William Temple’s prayer during World War 2:

‘Lord bless our country and all who serve it. Uphold our courage through all that comes. Make us worthy of victory, and establish peace and good will: through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

The most obvious difference, other than the lengths, is that the latter prayer includes the idea of victory, country, service and courage. The archbishop doesn’t seem particularly interested in a lasting peace with the Nazi’s; I don’t think I am reading too much into this by concluding he is praying for them to be defeated.

All of this is absent from the first prayer because the ACoC is unwilling to take a side – unless the issue is climate change, of course. Perish the thought that we might pray for Hamas to be defeated.

There is more in a similar vein from William Temple here:

 

Anglican Church of Canada publishes more essays on euthanasia

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The Anglican Church of Canada has not made any definitive statements on state sponsored euthanasia or MAID, Medical Assistance in Dying, to use the preferred euphemism. Instead, it has published essays.

Now it has published yet more essays which you can find here. All 234 pages of them.

I haven’t waded through the essays, although I did skim them in the vain hope of finding a statement like:

“The Anglican Church of Canada asserts that life is a God-given gift which only He has the authority to end” or:

“The Anglican Church of Canada believes that a person has the God-given right to end his life for a reason of his own choosing or because he has simply had enough.”

I didn’t see anything like that.

Come to think of it, I don’t particularly care what the ACoC thinks about euthanasia. I suspect no one else does either. And I would like to know how many in the ever-dwindling ACoC flock read all 234 pages.

There is a Journal article here:

The Anglican Church of Canada has published the first round of a collection of essays reckoning with the questions of life, death, faith and dignity surrounding medical assistance in dying (MAID). Faith Seeking Understanding: Medical Assistance in Dying collects thoughts from clergy, caregivers and academics within and adjacent to the Anglican community in a volume available now as a PDF or an ebook through the church’s website. Submissions remain open until Nov. 17 for proposals of further essays or reflections either adding to or responding to the content released in this initial version, reads a note in the collection’s early pages.

This collection represents the church’s first written document on MAID since In Sure and Certain Hope, a document released in 2016, the same year the practise became legal in Canada.

It contains a range of perspectives and questions on MAID from the definitions of freedom, human dignity and self-determination underlying the thinking behind the treatment to whether it is compatible with Anglican beliefs as expressed through liturgy. In their submissions, some authors argue for the church to compassionately embrace the practise while others argue Christians should speak out against it.