A second bishop has left the Anglican Church of Canada and, in a related development, the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone recently extended an invitation to Canadian Anglicans “in serious theological dispute” with their dioceses and or the national church.
 
The Rt. Rev. Malcolm Harding, who retired as Bishop of Brandon in 2001, announced that he will return to active ministry under Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables and the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. The Southern Cone is one of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces. Its canonically defined territory encompasses much of South America, including Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina.
 
Both Bishop Harding’s announcement and the invitation to join the Southern Cone came at the start of a meeting in Burlington, Ontario, Nov. 22-23 that was convened by the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), a group aligned with the Anglican Communion Network in the U.S. Both groups are part of the Common Cause Partnership that is seeking recognition as an Anglican Communion province.
 
“We want to provide a fully Anglican option—a safety net—for others who feel their church has abandoned them and who are contemplating the same action,” said the Rt. Rev. Donald Harvey, who became the first Canadian bishop to defect on Nov. 16. “Because of the unabated theological decay in the Anglican Church of Canada, many longtime Anglicans have already left their church and left Anglicanism.”
 
Bishop Harvey, the moderator of ANiC, served as Bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador from 1992-2004. He estimates as many as 40 Canadian Anglican congregations may affiliate with the Southern Cone in the near future. There are more than 2,000 congregations in the Anglican Church of Canada.
 
Last summer, the Anglican Church of Canada’s triennial General Synod declined to give dioceses permission to begin performing same-sex blessings, despite voting that such blessings do not violate “core doctrine.” This fall four diocesan synods approved resolutions calling on their bishops to permit blessings.
 
Following the invitation by Bshop Venables, the Anglican Church of Canada accused the Southern Cone of violating historic church tradition and called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to intervene. To date he has not responded.
 
The Primate of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, sent a letter to be read in every parish last Sunday noting that Bishop Harvey was no longer part of the Anglican Church of Canada. Church officials said Archbishop Hiltz will be writing another letter this week making clear that Canadian Anglican congregations which vote to join the Southern Cone won’t be allowed to keep their buildings.
 
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