Tag Archives: Archbishop Linda Nicholls

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.

Archbishop Linda Nicholls sees no major split in the Anglican Communion

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GAFCON, in its February 20th statement responding to the Church of England’s decision to bless same-sex marriages, has declared that the CofE can no longer be considered the “mother church”. It has broken communion with provinces that hold to Biblical views on human sexuality and Justin Welby is no longer the first among equals in the global communion.

In other words, the Anglican Communion is divided, split, rent asunder, fractured, broken.

Linda Nicholls thinks everything is just fine. The problem has been “overblown”. Like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, Nicholls cannot hear the waves of chaos crashing against the foundations of what is left of her church.

The truth is, the Anglican Communion has already split. What we are witnessing now is the external outworking of an inward fracture, an outward, visible sign of an inward, invisible rupture, an unholy sacrament.

Nicholls goes on to complain that according to the GAFCON statement, “the final test of orthodoxy is human sexuality”.

Not so. Orthodoxy requires not only a correct understand of the nature of God – or at least as correct as flawed humans can be – but a correct understanding of the nature of mankind. At the root of the church’s LGBT* mania is the lie that the purpose and nature of man is self-fulfilment, self-gratification and, especially in the “T” case, atheistic existential self-determination, a misreading of the human condition so mixed up, most self-respecting pagans wouldn’t hold to it.

From here:

The significance of a press statement from a grouping of theologically conservative Anglican primates which recommends the withdrawal of “orthodox provinces” from the rest of the Anglican Communion, and which has drawn international headlines, has been overblown, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, tells the Anglican Journal.

[….]

The motion passed in the Church of England’s General Synod allows clergy to use their conscience in deciding whether to use the prayers of blessing, meaning that they can opt in or out of blessing same-sex unions on an individual basis. So no church or individual will be required to give blessings that they disagree with, Nicholls says. In fact, she adds, since the Church of England motion extends only to blessings, it does not actually make any changes to its policy on marriage itself. For comparison, some dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada, after extensive discernment, have provided same-sex marriage as a pastoral response, Nicholls says.

In that context, she says, it makes little sense to break up the Communion over such a small change.

More waffle from Archbishop Linda Nicholls on euthanasia

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In 2016 Canada gave the terminally ill the choice to be euthanised.

In 2021 the offer was extended to those who were not terminally ill but have a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” including “psychological suffering that is intolerable”. And, of course, you have to “be eligible for health care services in Canada”, because suicide, like abortion, has become health care.

Mental illness is not considered to be intolerable psychological suffering – yet. It is liable to fall into that category later this year, along with an opportunity for mature minors to take up the invitation if they find themselves overburdened by the stresses and strains of the human condition.

Since life and death is a large part of the business of the church, one might be forgiven for expecting it to have a clear and definitive position on all this. Alas not.

Anglican Primate Linda Nicholl’s manages to muster up some concern about Canada’s eagerness to peddle health-care-death, but that’s about as far as she goes. Perhaps less energy expended in lamenting the climate emergency – or whatever it’s called this week – and more in denouncing our abortion and euthanasia death cults would be more… oh, I don’t know – prophetic.

Read it all here:

I am concerned about these potential extensions of MAID eligibility and the questions they raise. How do we ensure that every individual and family has what is needed to make an informed and accessible choice? In the face of illnesses or challenging disabilities it may be easy to see MAID as a preferable option, especially as it is less costly than providing the community supports that improve quality of life in its last stages, making access to mental health supports readily available, increasing palliative care accessibility and ensuring a circle of support for those whose lives are challenging physically, emotionally or mentally.

My prayer is that we will be willing to work for all that makes life a gift and blessing so that choices are not limited by fear or lack of support. Honest discussion in parishes about MAID are needed to explore the implications of the current change in legislation and any future ones for individuals, families and communities. Pastoral support is essential in whatever path is chosen. And in all aspects, as we walk in the midst of the realities of suffering, we are called in humility to mercy and compassion in the light of God’s love.

Canadian Primate claims Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda have separated from the Anglican Communion

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Archbishop Linda Nicholls stated in an email to the Anglican Journal that provinces that did not attend the latest Lambeth conference have “separated from the Anglican Communion”.

Does she mean by this that Anglicans in Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda are fake Anglicans, pale imitations of the genuine article?

When Canadian Anglicans left the Anglican Church of Canada for the Southern Cone and later formed ANiC, this was the claim explicitly made by ACoC clergy, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that Nicholls it is implying this. The fact that the provinces that did not attend Lambeth have full, vibrant churches while liberal western Anglicanism is little more than a twitching corpse whose nervous system is still functioning but has disconnected from any resemblance of sentience does not bother the archbishop. One almost gets the impression she is glad to see the back of these troublesome conservative provinces.

The other interpretation is that liberal western Anglicanism “separated from the Anglican Communion” some years ago by abandoning orthodox Christianity. Not only is it an Anglican fake, but a Christian fake.

From here:

The Anglican churches in Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda have effectively separated from the Anglican Communion by refusing to participate in the Lambeth Conference, says Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Like many other Canadian bishops, however, Nicholls also says she left this summer’s meeting in Lambeth, U.K. with a prevailing sense of hope for the future of the Communion.

About 650 bishops attended this summer’s Lambeth Conference, a gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world which last met in 2008. Much media coverage of the conference focused on disagreement over same-sex marriage, particularly after primates of Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda refused to attend in protest at the invitation of bishops in same-sex unions. The same three provinces had already boycotted the 2008 gathering—attending a meeting of conservative bishops, the Global Anglican Futures Conference, in Jerusalem instead—as well as the meeting of Anglican Communion primates in March 2022.

Reached via email, Nicholls said the Lambeth boycott is a sign those provinces have left the global grouping of Anglican churches.

“Some have already indicated by their non-participation that they have separated from the Anglican Communion,” she said, confirming she meant the provinces of Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda. “Others continue to participate despite disagreement and I see that continuing into the future.”

Primate Linda Nicholls prays for the peace of Jerusalem…. sort of

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The Primate starts out with this:

To seek the prosperity of Jerusalem is to seek a just and lasting peace that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis—Christians, Jews and Muslims—in this land.

A statement that is designed to sound high-minded, right thinking – virtuous. Who, after all, doesn’t want lasting peace and justice in the Middle East?

Regrettably, it doesn’t end there. Nicholls goes on to prove a point that I’ve thought for a while: it is impossible not to take a side in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The difference between those who take sides is this:

Those who side with Israel admit it. I am one of them because Israel, the only democratic, free, civilised country in the region, is in a conflict with a group of people who will not stop attacking it until it ceases to exist. It has an obligation to protect its citizens and it is doing so.

Those who side against Israel pretend to be impartial, but they are not. This is a deceit that becomes transparently obvious as soon as they voice their opinions. Or, if they are clerics, threaten to pray for justice.

This is the duplicitous camp into which Nicholls has placed herself. She would like us to believe she is above the conflict, an impartial ecclesiastical arbiter unmoved by bias or irrational animus: in other words, a typical liberal. But her words betray her:

Request the implementation of UN resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 194 (1948)

Call for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories and the end of illegal Israeli settlements

Call Israel, as an occupying power, to respect the 4th Geneva Convention

Request measures by the Palestinian Authority to reduce poverty and unemployment, and to improve services to Palestinians

Recognize the city of Jerusalem as a shared holy place for Christians, Muslims and Jews

Recognize the need for trade between Palestine and Canada

Anglican Church of Canada Primate announces she is a racist

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She is a racist, she tells us, because she is white.

Let’s examine this heartfelt confession. The OED defines a racist as:

A person who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized

Linda Nicholls believes, sincerely we must assume, that anyone who has the misfortune of being born with a skin colour that is white, off-white or merely pasty is innately biased against his or her more fortunate brethren who have been endowed with a less pink complexion. She believes that bias against another’s race is itself determined by race. And Linda Nicholls is a member of the benighted race that is cursed with that bias.

That really does make her a racist.

From here:

Last year, in the months before General Synod and the primatial election, an acquaintance told me that she had heard someone publicly share that I am racist. My initial response was to be deeply hurt and to try to find out what I had said or done that would lead to those remarks. How had I acted? What had I said? How could this be when I abhor the thought of racism?

Since then I have recognized that I am racist. I am a white, privileged Canadian who is enmeshed in the cultural expectations and assumptions of the society in which I was raised. I have benefitted because I was born into the class and colour of those who have systemic power. As someone with power I unconsciously participate in and collude with racism and have absorbed attitudes deep within me. I am as enmeshed in racism by the benefits I have received as is the person enmeshed in racism by discrimination. The only aspect of disempowerment I have experienced directly has come from my gender as a woman. Even there, others had begun the battle for rights and recognition over the past one hundred years, and I enjoy the fruit of their hard-won justice.

An interview with Archbishop Linda Nicholls

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Here is an interview with the Anglican Church of Canada’s new Primate.

We have a unique opportunity to witness within the Anglican Communion to what it means to live together in faith. In a world of increasing polarization where differences become reasons to hate, we are a Church that gathers first around our call in Jesus Christ. We have differences – language, culture, race, sexual orientation, liturgical preferences, theological preferences – and we could divide on any or all of these. Yet, our beloved Church seeks a unity in God built on respect, dignity of every person, and the humility grounded in our need for each other as we each seek to be faithful to the Gospel and need to hear how God is speaking to each of us and to the whole Church. Despite the sometimes pain of our differences – we are family in Christ.

As you can see, Nicholls is living in a fantasy world, where a fantasy church is undivided, unified and all live in harmony together. In our world, the Anglican Church of Canada divided in 2008 when parishes left en masse to join the Southern Cone and later ANiC. Those who remain are even less unified than in 2008 and, as we could see from the last General Synod, there was crying, wailing and people rolling on the floor in anguish. Delegates were not getting along with each other.

In fairness to Nicholls, though, she has been striving diligently for unity.

As this report predicts:

the results of a controversial study presented to Anglican bishops five years ago that said that at the present rate of decline – a loss of 13,000 members per year – only one Anglican would be left in Canada by 2061.

In the Diocese of Huron, no one has worked harder to close churches and watch as people flee than Nicholls. Today Huron, tomorrow the rest of the church until, by 2061, only one person will be left. Then we’ll have perfect unity.

New Anglican Church of Canada Primate marches in Pride Parade

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Here is Archbishop Linda Nicholls along with other Anglicans from the Diocese of Huron getting ready to walk in the 2019 London Ontario Pride Parade.

I don’t recall seeing her predecessor, Fred Hiltz, in a Pride Parade. Such is the march of progress.

That’s a nice TiIley hat she’s wearing.