Anglican community the final schisms.

Unnoticed by many, the Anglican community is now split several ways. Worldwide, the final blow came in August, 2005 when Archbishop Peter Akinola, primate of Nigeria, withdrew his community from the church. Fed up with the creeping agenda of the same-sex marriage" lobby, the Nigerian communion deleted from its constitution all references to "communion with the see of Canterbury," replacing the words with "communion with all Anglican Churches, Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."

Another split had come in the United Kingdom when the July 2005 Synod of the Church of England overthrew its promise of 1992 and formally accepted the ordination of female bishops in England and Wales.

The homosexuality issue

The controversy about homosexuality was first brought to a head in 2002 when Canadian Bishop Michael Ingham of the New Westminster diocese in B.C. consented to the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese. Then, in July 2004, same-sex unions were officially blessed in the United States, followed by the election of Gene Robinson, an active homosexual who abandoned his wife and children to cohabit with his male partner, as Episcopal bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire. (See C.I. Sept. 2004.) (Robinson, recently in England for a four-day stay, including a visit with the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, hit out at the Catholic Church, accusing it of "vile" treatment of homosexuals (Tablet, Nov. 12, 2005, p. 35).

Viewing the North American situation with the "utmost seriousness," many bishops from Africa and Asia requested the Canadian and U.S. churches to voluntarily withdraw from a February 2005 Consultative Council until 2008 (the next meeting of the international Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in England). A visit to Canada by the Archbishop of Canterbury in March was cancelled, in an effort, some said, to further isolate the Canadian and U.S. communities.

In June 2005, Canadian and U.S. bishops were summoned to Nottingham, England, to explain why their severance should not be made permanent. The Canadians were also required to halt all same-sex blessings as a minimum acceptable condition. They refused to do so, putting off a decision on the matter until their own National General Synod in 2007.

To date, then, there have been no apologies, only expressions of regret "for the pain caused" to the "gay" and lesbian community--and defiance.

Nigeria, meanwhile, in addition to severing ties with the See of Canterbury,

also announced Nigerian seminarians will no longer tram in the United States and Canada. They have established a Convocation of Anglican Nigerian Churches which will "provide safe harbour for those who can no longer find their spiritual home" elsewhere.

Ordination of female bishops

Also barely noticed by the mainstream press is the break-up of the Anglican Church within Great Britain. In July, the Synod of England and Wales announced its intention to follow the Scots and remove the legal restrictions on the ordination of women as bishops. In doing so, they negated their own ruling of 1992, the "Women Priests Measure," which specifically excluded women from being consecrated bishops. While the logic of women bishops following on women priests may have been obvious to everyone else, it appears to have escaped Anglican decision-makers at that time. The decision of the November 11, 1992, General Synod turns out to be a compromise from which there is no return.

At the time, since the bishops were uncertain that the ordination of women to the priesthood was the will of God, they acknowledged the "provisionality" of their ruling.

Consequently, no churchmen, lay or ordained, were obliged to accept the decision. Thus they bought a temporary peace, and an informal three-way split within the church was the result: those who favoured women's ordination to the priesthood, Reform (evangelicals opposed to it), and Forward in Faith (those opposed to female priests).

The decision to ordain women as bishops has shattered the compromise, changing "whether" to "when" with regard to all-out schism. The solution proposed by some members of Forward in Faith within the church is a third Independent Province, separate from York and Canterbury. The Free and Independent Province would be "free and unfettered by decisions of the General Synod," able to train and ordain men to the priesthood, in control of its own resources and able to conduct its own ecumenical negotiations with other Christian bodies (Fr. Francis Gardom, The Rock, September 15, 2005).

Anglo-Catholic discussions

The latest stage of the dissolution of Anglican unity also affects the discussion between Anglicans and Catholics. Indeed, ecumenical talks between Anglicans and Catholic go on, but to what effect? A Marian accord was drawn up recently by top clerics, but how many Anglicans accept it? The Jesuit-run Heythrop College in London intends to offer a Masters degree in "Anglican theology," but what is Anglican doctrine? In Canada, Catholic bishops attend Anglican Episcopal ordinations, but to what purpose? Isn't this practice deceptive, now that unity between the two churches is no longer a possibility? As Cardinal Walter Kasper recently pointed out, "the attempt to establish communion among people without coming to an agreement on fundamental values--on which it rests--represents a pure illusion which can have no consistency in the long run" (Zenit, Nov. 24, 2005).

In an address to Catholic priests in Toronto in November 2005, Cardinal Edward Cassidy further emphasized the frustrations Catholics face in dialogue with the Anglicans who have failed to exert authority and unity. "There is so much we could do," he said, "but how do we deal with a communion that doesn't know where the authority resides?" (Cath. Reg. Nov. 27, 2005).