Amid news that an 11th congregation had voted to disassociate from the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster and affiliate with the dissenting Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW), the five metropolitans in the Anglican Church of Canada released a public letter Oct. 9 stating their determination to use ecclesiastical and canonical discipline if necessary to ensure that the Anglican Church of Canada is allowed to continue its evolutionary progress toward the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in all aspects of the life of the church.

The New Westminster annual synod in June 2002 voted to implement a rite of blessings for same-sex unions. The ACiNW members declared themselves “out of communion” with synod and the local bishop and appealed for alternative episcopal oversight. Speaking to the issue of disciplining ACiNW members and supporters including specifically, the Rt. Rev. Terry Buckle, Bishop of Yukon, who has extended “pastoral oversight” to the 11 ACiNW congregations, despite the express written consent of the Bishop of New Westminster, the Rt. Rev. Michael Ingham, the five Canadian metropolitans said:

“It is rather, those who intervene from outside the Anglican Church of Canada, and those within who do not abide by the church’s order, who undermine the necessary and difficult conversation in which members of the General Synod will engage.”

The Essentials Council, a Canadian Anglican group of which the ACiNW is a member, said afterward that the metropolitans’ long-standing refusal to respect doctrinal boundaries, such as the acceptance of same-sex blessings in New Westminster, was the source of the current discord over human sexuality. “In light of this, we find it preposterous that the metropolitans consider the threat to the Anglican Communion to be the responsibility of Bishop Buckle,” they concluded.