A brief interview with The Rev Canon Charlie Masters, National Director of the Anglican Network in Canada, has been posted at Virtue Online. He was asked about the plan for a new Anglican structure in North America, announced recently by the Common Cause Council of Bishops.
VOL: How do you see today’s events?
MASTERS: It is very significant for the Network in Canada. We see ourselves as full members of the partnership and the formation of an ecclesiastical structure that was called forth at Kilgali, Rwanda in 2006. It is just as important for us Canadians as it is for Americans.
VOL: How big is the Network in Canada?
MASTERS: We have 16 parishes. About 500 have signed on as official members. We have significant numbers beyond that. Two bishops the Rt. Rev. Don Harvey, retired Bishop of the diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador and now the Moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada, and the Rt. Rev. Malcolm Harding retired Bishop of Brandon , ambassador for Anglican Renewal Ministries in Canada and has just joined Network since General Synod – are both important to us. Bishop Harvey is definitely our leader and is here representing us all here in Pittsburgh. I should also mention that about a third of all Anglican bishops in Canada are orthodox but how they all might approach the coming days in the Anglican Church of Canada is not clear.
VOL: Why is this event important now for you and orthodox Anglicans in Canada?
MASTERS: It’s the timing. We came to the conclusion after General Synod that further attempts to turn the Anglican Church of Canada around were now impossible. The fate of the church has been irrevocably sealed. It has no future. It will die a slow but inevitable death. One has only to look at the statistics of my own diocese to see that. The Titanic is going down. It will take a while, but its death is inevitable.
Canon Masters has served as Rector of St George’s, Lowville, Ontario, for over twenty-five years. The parish is part of the Diocese of Niagara, one of the most liberal dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada.
c/p: Magic Statistics
