As I mentioned here, in 2019 the Anglican Journal abandoned all pretence at editorial independence.
I am not convinced it would have made much of a difference to the muddle the ACoC hierarchy has made of dealing with charges of sexual misconduct made against ACoC clergy, but there remains no doubt at this point that the Journal, its policies and its articles are in the firm grip of the Anglican Church of Canada.
The names of the complainants were extracted under protest by the ACoC from Journal staff who were made aware of them on the understanding that they would remain confidential. The promise of confidentiality was broken by Alan Perry, general secretary of General Synod.
To his credit, the Journal editor resigned over this breach of trust. Alan Perry did not, even though some are urging him to do so.
As in so many of these grubby affairs, hand-wringing and wordy (how these priests like to prattle) apologies abound but the only real consequences are those suffered by the innocent parties: the victims, the Journal editor (Matthew Townsend) and a staff writer (Joelle Kidd).
If this were a secular organisation – sorry, I misspoke, it is, of course – heads would roll. Heads close to or at the top.
There is more in this article from the Journal and a great deal of detailed information on the ACCToo website:
In a footnote to their open letter posted this February, #ACCtoo organizers Michael Buttrey and Carolyn Mackie blame the Anglican Journal governance policy General Synod adopted in 2019 for enabling the alleged breach of confidentiality and privacy for which the letter calls the church to account.
“We believe this abuse of power was enabled by a motion adopted at the 2019 General Synod meeting in Vancouver that changed the mandate, oversight, and reporting structure of the AJ,” the footnote reads.
The subject of their open letter is the sharing in spring 2021, by senior church management, of a draft article intended for Anglican Journal sister publication Epiphanies containing allegations by anonymous sources of sexual misconduct in the church, with four institutions related to these allegations. By the time this article was being written, #ACCtoo’s open letter, which calls for the Anglican Church of Canada to apologize, make amends with the survivors and require the resignation of Archdeacon Alan Perry, general secretary of General Synod, had attracted the attention of several news outlets. But very little of the media coverage had dealt with the governance issues the letter raised—the policies that govern the Anglican Journal.
Sexual misconduct of course includes same-sex seduction and abuse. As I wrote long ago in my ‘Dialogue with Hugh’, “The more we know about the nature of the same-sex ‘act of love’ (which, when all’s said and done, in the male case involves entering an exit) the more careful we have to be about simple disgust. At the same time, isn’t it reasonable that people who are not disembodied spirits, but who only ever know one another in this life in bodies which are of one sex or the other, should experience a reaction which is tinged with emotion? Some people have an entirely principled objection to a situation in which their growing children may be encouraged to think of this kind of relating as being on all fours with heterosexual relations, or to come to their local parish church and be ‘turned’ by their friendly neighbourhood Anglican priest. Nor do we think an emotional reaction of disgust and horror peculiar in a victim of sexual abuse.” [Holy Homosex p.62]
If same sex ‘marriage’ is beautiful and good, what can be wrong with opposite-sex sin of the old-fashioned kind?
‘Anglican Journal’, the 2019 General Synod’s Revised Version of The Liberal/NDP Regime’s Bills C 10/C 11 (2021;2022).
If one examines beneath the current Cultural Marxist PCC ‘Connections’, there can be found the spiritual bodies of the Biblical ‘Presbyterian Record’, dispatched by its come-and-now-gone Cultural Marxist ACC Editor.