From The Anglican Journal article on the recent ACoC House of Bishops meeting in Niagara:
The bishops also stated “with regret” that clergy and laity who are members of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) “should not be given permission to exercise a leadership role in the Cursillo movement of the Anglican Church of Canada.” (The ANiC includes clergy and laity who have left the Canadian Anglican church because of theological differences over sexuality and other issues.)
The bishops said they were responding to a “call for clarification” from the national Cursillo secretariat. “It was noted that diocesan bishops have the authority to decide who may serve on Cursillo teams,” they said.
So, the house of bishops would purge all ANiC members, clergy and lay, from Anglican Cursillio leadership, to make a political point (that being, members of ANiC aren’t “real” Anglicans). I couldn’t tell you how many ANiC members are involved with Cursillo – I’ve been on a weekend, but it was never a big thing in my parish. Still, it seems strange to me that the bishops would rather risk losing Cursillio leaders than (horrors) have an ANiC person involved in a leadership role. I know that I am getting cynical about the ACoC – but really, decisions like this make it easy to be!
It would seem that the Canadian Anglican Cursillo operates under a letter of agreement with the Roman Catholic Cursillo Movement of the United States. Therefore, I am sure that ANiC churches could get a similar letter of agreement and hold their own Cursillos. Or, just call Cursillo something different and carry on. Ironically, I’d bet that the large majority of Canadian Anglican Cursillistas would agree with the ANiC way of thinking.
Note that “Cursillo leadership” applies to precisely these roles, already reserved to Anglican Church members (including Lutherans):
- Lay and Spritual Directors of the diocesan secretariat
- Lay Rector and Spritual Directors on a weekend
This came up on another thread, too.
P.S. Kate, you’re still the Cursillo rep for St. Albans. You don’t get off that easy
Why would anyone from ANiC want to be part of an ACoC programme? Would it not be better to start your own?
I am?? You are kidding, right?
Are you sure that is all that leadership refers to? I think it could be defined much more broadly than that. It could refer to anybody involved in organizing a weekend.
I don’t know, Fr. Ernest, it was just the mean spiritedness of the thing that galled me, really.
In practical terms, this prohibition should not greatly trouble ANiC members. Lay and Spiritual Directors serve under the authority and spiritual direction of the ACoC diocesan bishop. Why would ANiC adherents want to do that, as Fr. Ernest asked? On the other hand, we are not prevented as serving on weekend teams as they have often included non Anglicans such as Baptists, Presbyterians, RCs, Pentecostals. etc.
A recent posting by the “Commissary” on the Diocese of BC website confirms that view:
“Cursillo has always been open to participation of Christians from other denominations, and a certain minority percentage of non-Anglicans may serve on the secretariats. The Canadian Anglican Cursillo Secretariat at its October 2008 meeting decided that the most expeditious way to deal with [the issue of ANIC members involvement in Cursillo] was to provide a definition of “Anglican” in the glossary as “referring to members of the Anglican Church of Canada.” This would indicate that members of ANIC are a non-Anglican denomination and would be considered as any other non-Anglican denomination (i.e. may participate as secretariat members or team members in accordance with CACS guidelines, but not in lay director or spiritual director positions).” That appears to be the most charitable statement regarding AniC that has emerged from this diocese.
The most troublesome element is that promulgated by the Cursillo National Secretariat in stating that Anglican Network members are not Anglicans. Even then, that may simply be saying that the organization with whom the licensing of the Cursillo method has been granted is to the ACoC. It would have been better to modify the Anglican language within the document to read ACoC rather than define what THEY think is Anglican.
Exactly Geoff, that is my point. I think that the whole purpose of this decision is to reinforce the “fact” that ANiC isn’t Anglican.
#4 Kate – not kidding. I have Cursillo parish reps on the list for places like Almonte Presbyterian, Cityview United, and the Anglican Catholic Cathedral. St. George’s and St. Alban’s are also still on the list. At the same time, I have to say that the local Ottawa movement isn’t being terribly active. There is a women’s weekend in November this year. There was a men’s weekend in March.
I thought I had officially quit that. Not that it really matters, because there aren’t any cursillistas active in the movement at St. Alban’s, to my knowledge, anyway.