News of former National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop Mark MacDonald’s resignation due to sexual misconduct allegations has shocked many in the church, with Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders describing both emotional and practical challenges in coming to terms with it.

MacDonald resigned as national Indigenous archbishop and formally relinquished his exercise of ordained ministry April 20 following allegations of sexual misconduct.

In a pastoral letter to the church, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said MacDonald had acknowledged the sexual misconduct. His resignation took effect in accordance with Canon XIX on Relinquishment or Abandonment of the Ministry. The primate confirmed to the Anglican Journal that there are no allegations of criminal offences.

“This is devastating news,” Nicholls said in her pastoral letter. “The sense of betrayal is deep and profound when leaders fail to live up to the standards we expect and the boundaries we set. Our hearts hold compassion for human frailty and space for repentance while we also ache with the pain that such betrayal causes first to the complainant; then to so many others and to the life of our Church.”
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The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) have issued a joint press release announcing the online publication of the report of the Fifth Phase of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity. The report is entitled Baptism and Growth in Communion. The new document, which has been in preparation for the past seven years, includes important impulses for ongoing theological and ecclesiological discussion and makes “a significant step in proposing a differentiating consensus on baptism.”

The report seeks to find a language for the ecclesial dimensions of growth in communion. It concludes with six commitments setting out a road map for the ongoing dialogue and for the growing cooperation at all levels between Lutherans and Catholics. It highlights particular events over recent years that have contributed to the journey ‘from conflict to communion’, notably the joint commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in Lund, Sweden, the Declaration of Intent endorsing fuller collaboration between the LWF’s World Service arm and the Caritas Internationalis network, as well as local initiatives such as the visit of Pope Francis to the Lutheran parish in Rome in 2015.
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The Council of General Synod (CoGS) has committed itself to improving the church’s practices in a range of areas including sexual abuse and journalistic governance in the wake of public allegations that senior church management failed to protect the identities of victims of alleged sexual assault by sharing last year an early draft of an article for an Anglican Journal sister publication.
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In more than one of our One Body articles, my fellow bloggers and I have emphasized the importance of deep, prayerful, heartfelt listening as essential to ecumenical ministry and engagement.

Such listening orients us to the voices of sisters and brothers from other churches and ecclesial communities; it invites us to consider the real (not our perceived or imagined) situation of their lives and calls us to be attentive to the ways in which the Lord may be speaking and working through them, for our sake (and theirs), and for the sake of the world.
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The founding documents for Sacred Circle, the self-determining Indigenous church within the Anglican Church of Canada, have been revealed to the world.

On Feb. 27, Transfiguration Sunday, The Covenant and Our Way of Life were publicly released. Both documents had been distributed earlier to participants of the last two Sacred Circle gatherings, as well as to Anglican Indigenous networks and the Anglican Church of Canada’s House of Bishops.
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The timeline for a full communion partnership between The Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church remains on hold as the latter has postponed its quadrennial General Conference until 2024, when it will consider a vote to split the 12.9 million-member denomination over disagreements on the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ members.
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For the first time in almost 500 years, a Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated in Geneva’s Protestant St. Pierre Cathedral, with people praying in packed pews.

It was a celebration of Christian unity in a world reeling at the war and the growing humanitarian needs in Ukraine.

Some 1,500 people attended the Mass on March 5 at the imposing cathedral in the heart of Geneva’s old town that had been a Catholic church before the 1536 Reformation.
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A recent blog by Nick Jesson identifies “six signs of an ecumenical springtime” as a cause for renewed hope in the search for Christian unity. Not mentioned by Nick but perhaps a seventh sign of an ecumenical springtime is a growing appreciation for Saint John Paul II’s reference to dialogue as an ecumenical gift exchange. Pope Francis offers clear encouragement: “If we really believe in the abundantly free working of Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another!” (Evangelii Gaudium 246). With this in mind, the Catholic Ecumenical Officers of Western Canada saw Pope Francis’ invitation to the whole church, Catholic and ecumenical, to reflect together on synodality as an invitation to host an ecumenical panel on the topic.
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When Wiarton Willie or his furry cousins poke their heads out to see if spring has come, there is just one sign that counts. Does he see his shadow? Of course, it’s all just fun; there is no causal relationship between a cloudy sky on February 2nd and an early spring. It is a lot more complicated when it comes to the signs of an ecumenical springtime, but there is much more cause for hope.

Since the mid-1980s, it has become commonplace to forecast an ecumenical winter in contrast to the enthusiasm of the 1960s and 70s. After the early achievements of post-Vatican II ecumenism, with key agreements on the Eucharist, ministry, authority, and various other controverted questions, progress slowed as ecumenists took up questions of ecclesiology, authority, and ethics. Yet after every winter comes spring. This blog post will explore six signs of an ecumenical springtime.
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As in previous years, during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity L’Osservatore Romano published a series of articles prepared by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on the ecumenical relations of the Holy See. The texts, which are published in Italian, offer an update on the ecumenical situation and on initiatives undertaken in 2021.
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As Christians come together to mark the annual ecumenical Week of Prayer, the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), Bishop Brian Farrell, says Pope Francis’ synodal process could make a “hugely important” contribution to improving relationships between the different churches.
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For Christians following the Byzantine lectionary, these words from the Gospel of Matthew are read on Christmas day. Indeed, for us Eastern Catholics who follow the Julian calendar, we heard those words just last week! While most of our neighbours have already finished their Christmas celebrations and moved past Epiphany, for some of us the party is just getting started. The accounting of the journey of the wise men provides lessons for us Christians: we see how Herod and the religious establishment wanted to harm the newborn King of Kings, while those who worshipped stars were among the first to recognize the coming of the Christ.

This year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-25) has taken these same words from the Gospel of Matthew and incorporated them as its theme. It is a reminder for us in the West to look towards the ancestral Churches of the East in solidarity. Many of the faithful of these Churches today experience political, economic, and social turmoil in their everyday lives. Unity is needed more than ever.
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