In October 2022, members, consultants, and staff of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs met with members of the Anglican Church in North America’s (ACNA) Committee on Ecumenical Affairs in Chicago. The meeting marked the second theological exchange between the committees, and mutual affirmation by both organizations was expressed towards future meetings to explore ways to draw closer together and expand the Kingdom of God.

Following a time of fellowship and prayer, papers were presented for discussion on the Roman Catholic and Anglican understanding of the Episcopacy.
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Participants in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), and Lutheran Church-Canada’s (LCC) ongoing ecumenical dialogue have released an interim report on their work so far. Entitled “On Closer Acquaintance,” the document is the culmination of six years of regular discussions between the three church bodies, and highlights the discovery of significant doctrinal agreement between the Anglican and Lutheran participants.

The authors are clear that there is still much work to be done before altar and pulpit fellowship between the two sides would be possible. Nevertheless, they have found the discussions promising enough to publicly declare their prayer “that, in the time and manner of His choosing, our Lord would grant each side in our conversations to acknowledge our ‘first cousin’ to be in fact a true sister church, with the result that we would welcome each other wholeheartedly to our respective altars and enjoy the blessed situation in which our clergy and people would be interchangeable with each other as we stand under the grace of God and work for His kingdom.”

In the meantime, they encourage all three church bodies to “consider the ways in which we can cooperate and come together in ways that fall short of full communion but do allow the greatest measure of cooperation while maintaining full theological integrity.”
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Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby recently articulated his understanding of the status of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), formed in 2009 by a coalition of a dozen groups that chose to break communion with the Anglican Church of Canada and, in the United States, with The Episcopal Church. ACNA, said the archbishop in an October interview with the Church of Ireland Gazette, “is a separate church. It is not part of the Anglican Communion.” Instead, he described ACNA as “an ecumenical partner.” The Anglican Church of Canada has a number of ecumenical partners. One, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, has become a full communion partner with which we enjoy a full and mutual recognition of ministry and sacraments. With others, like the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, we’re still on that journey—an admittedly longer one. To be an ecumenical partner means to repent of our divisions and to understand them as a scandalous contradiction of the will of Christ. It means to fervently desire reconciliation with the churches from which we are separated, and to manifest this desire in prayer, dialogue and action. To be an ecumenical partner also means recognizing that the other with whom you are seeking to reconcile demonstrates signs of the Holy Spirit at work, even if you are in disagreement about some significant issues.
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Court rules church properties remain with diocese of New Westminster

The Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled yesterday that the Anglican Church of Canada’s diocese of New Westminster retains possession of four church properties worth an estimated $20 million. Members of congregations in these churches, who voted to leave the Anglican Church of Canada and join the more conservative Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), claimed these properties were held in trust for them.

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