THE DIOCESE of San Joaquin has welcomed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter to the Primates

Friday, 21st December 2007. 11:59am

By: George Conger.

THE DIOCESE of San Joaquin has welcomed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter to the Primates, seeing it as a validation of its secession from The Episcopal Church to the Church of the Province of the Southern Cone.

“I find it difficult to imagine any other reading of Canterbury’s Advent letter than the intent to recognize — or maybe I should say, to allow San Joaquin to be recognized as a legitimate member of the Anglican Communion,” Diocesan spokesman the Rev Van McCalister (pictured) told The Church of England Newspaper. In his Dec 14 Advent letter to the Primates, Dr Williams distinguished between the various responses made by North American traditionalists to the disputes over doctrine and discipline.

He objected to the creation of new extra-territorial ecclesial entities, but supported dioceses engaged in a ‘radical’ response to the dispute with the national churches. While not naming CANA, the Anglican Mission in America, or the Ugandan or Kenyan jurisdictions in the US, Dr Williams said they created a ‘seriously anomalous position.’

“It does not appeal to a clear or universal principle by which it may be decided that a local church’s ministry is completely defective. On the ground, it creates rivalry and confusion. It opens the door to complex and unedifying legal wrangles in civil courts. It creates a situation in which pastoral care and oversight have to be exercised at a great distance,” he said.

The Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone, Gregory Venables, told us the Advent statement was in line with his September conversation with Dr Williams on San Joaquin’s planned secession. The ‘gist’ of the September conversation, Bishop Venables said, was encapsulated in this new letter.

Americadesk@religiousintelligence.com