When the principal secretary to Fred Hiltz, Paul Feheley, was appointed editor of the Anglican Journal, some questioned whether this would compromise the paper’s editorial independence.

The Journal gets a $596,627 subsidy from Canadian Heritage – from our taxes – but only if it maintains editorial independence; since it involves money, this is an important issue for the church.

Doubts I may have harboured about the Journal’s editorial independence were allayed somewhat when the article about my little spat with Michael Bird appeared.

However, the doubts – which I am doing my best to embrace – were reinvigorated when, the day after the article appeared, five paragraphs mysteriously vanished; ENS also carried the article and the same thing happened there.

Presumably, somebody contacted the Journal and ENS to ask for the removal of the now expunged material. I have no idea who.

Paul Feheley is principal secretary to the primate, Fred Hiltz. This casts doubt on the editorial independence of the Journal.

All the comments on the announcement here express the same concern: with Feheley at the helm the Journal will not have editorial independence from the Anglican Church of Canada. What they fail to mention, though, is that the Journal gets a $596,627 subsidy from Canadian Heritage – from our taxes – but only provided it maintains its editorial independence.

For those concerned that I have suffered a lapse into gullibility – perhaps induced by an excess of Christmas cheer – never fear: I am well aware that the Journal’s editorial independence has always been a fiction. But with the primate’s principal secretary in charge, it may be a fiction that is impossible to maintain – at the cost of $596,627 per year.

The paper could not survive without the subsidy. I, for one, would be unhappy to see the demise of the Anglican Journal and satellite diocesan papers: it would be the end of rich vein of material begging to be mocked.