A Critique of the Anglican Federation

A new epithet has been invented by some of our brothers in the Continuing Church to describe those orthodox Anglicans who are seeking to restore communicatio in sacris and practical cooperation amongst all who profess and embody the Anglican Tradition: neo-Anglicans. In the most recent edition of the The Trinitarian, Archbishop Mark Haverland of the Anglican Catholic Church issues a sharp criticism of the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas and its efforts to forge a new realignment in American Anglicanism. In the op-ed piece we 'Neo-Anglicans' are clearly implied to be the very antithesis of what we claim we are, orthodox Anglicans who maintain the fullness of the Apostolic Tradition. Why? Because of our sacramental relationship with the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Mission in America. Does our communion with these bodies render us innovators, un-Anglican and un-Catholic?

The Archbishop does not mention the 1941 Report of the Joint Commission on Approaches to Unity of the Episcopal Church led by the Anglo-Catholic Bishop Frank Wilson of Eau Claire, certainly held in the days of orthodoxy, which, taking into consideration the record of the 1888 Lambeth Conference, declares Reformed Episcopal Orders valid. Heresy, even regarding Apostolic Succession, does not invalidate Holy Orders, or so say Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Robert Bellarmine, to mention a few authoritative names. The 1941 Report unequivocally asserts: 'The Historic Episcopate has been preserved in the Reformed Episcopal Church and the episcopal succession has been carefully maintained from this beginning' and 'Therefore it is now proposed that the Statement to the Lambeth Conference of 1888 should be considered as a significant document of an earlier generation but with no current authority and that it should not be allowed to stand in the way of negotiations looking toward the healing of this particular schism.' In 1960, in the days of its orthodoxy, the Church of England published the findings of its Faith and Order Advisory Group (FOAG) which stated: 'It is clear that the orders of this Church [REC] derive from an Anglican bishop; and that its bishops have been consecrated in due succession and its priests ordained with the use of the Anglican Ordinal, though in a slightly altered form. We cannot regard these alterations as being in themselves sufficient to call into question the validity of the ministry.'

Archbishop Haverland also does not mention the critical fact for this discussion that the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), perhaps for the first time in Anglican history, has reversed its previous position and as of July 2003 has ceased to purport to ordain women to the priesthood and episcopate. The Anglican Province of America consistently and repeatedly affirms the male character of the Sacrament of Holy Orders and sees in AMiA's decision a vitally-important first step back to Apostolic Faith and Order. God willing, the AMiA will in time come to embrace a fully catholic doctrine of the diaconate as well as of the priesthood and episcopate. A shared common doctrine of the sacerdotium has indeed finally enabled our Churches to restore sacramental communion, a precedent that should be encouraged for the whole Universal Church. It should also be noted that a dispute over the male character of the diaconate could be allowed, if pressed, to affect any jurisdiction's relationship with Forward in Faith United Kingdom, Forward in Faith North America and the majority of Anglo-Catholic dioceses and parishes worldwide. Most Anglo-Catholics have not allowed the dispute to be a church-dividing impediment.

What do you think? Do you agree with the Anglican Catholic Church on this issue?

Be wary of 'Neo-Anglicans' by the Most Reverend Mark Haverland

Father Lawrence Wells in Orange Park, Fla. has coined a term that I am recommending widely: "neo-Anglican." I continue to be asked why the ACC is not uniting with the folk currently leaving The Episcopal Church. The answer is that we can only unite with people who believe as we do about important matters of doctrine, worship, morals and order. Many people who joined The Episcopal Church in the 1980s and 1990s have had little or no expo­sure to the Anglican tradition. For such people the Affirmation of St. Louis and the ACC are not particularly attractive. Such folk are neo-Anglicans, with no commitment to the classical Prayer Books, the male character of Holy Orders, or the Anglican musical and literary patrimony. Canon John Hollister recently made a similar point about the "Anglican Federation of Churches and Ministries" (www.anglicanfederation.org), which is composed of the Anglican Church in America, the Anglican Mission in America, the Episcopal Missionary Church, the Anglican Province in America (sic), and the Reformed Episcopal Church. These various groups are by their federa­tion articles committed to receiving members from each other upon the mere presentation of Letters Dimissory. Canon Hollister has trenchant­ly observed that therefore each of these AFCM bodies has formally recognized the validity of the ministry of each of the other. Which is "neo-Anglican," not Anglican. The Lambeth Conferences in the days of their orthodoxy refused to recognize the ordinations of the Reformed Episcopal Church, which began with an explicit rejection of Apostolic Succession. Likewise the AMiA has women deacons, has "grandfathered" (or "grandmothered") in women already "ordained" as priests, and is under the oversight of an African Anglican Church which has women priests. All of the AFCM bodies have, therefore, effectively asserted that the ordination of women is NOT an essential bar to full communion and that the classical Anglican position on the REC is wrong. But these assertions are neither Catholic nor Anglican; only neo-Anglican.

Let me make clear that the ACC and I are not seeking to be separated from others. We desire the highest possible level of cooperation and communion. But the whole point of the formation of the ACC in the late 1970s was to assert that the creation of a new ministry (women priests) by The Episcopal Church was itself an essential error that demanded separation. Union of the ACC with people who accept that essential error on any level would be utterly disastrous. While I am alive—and I think I may speak for my episcopal colleagues in the ACC—the ACC will not infect itself with the disease we have purged ourselves of at great cost. "Unity" can come only when the AFCM, its member bodies, and similar groups, realize that the Faith is a seamless whole. We can­not pull out one thread without raveling the whole garment. The road from women deacons to Gene Robinson and Presiding Bishop Mrs. Schori is direct and short, and the happy coalition builders who are obscuring and compromising at the beginning of their enterprises will come quickly to grief.