Anglican Church didn't abandon anybody

From Calgary-

Re: Susan Martinuk's Dec. 3 column, Anglican Church abandoned its parishioners.

There is an old saying there are two sides to any story.

Susan Martinuk's column "Anglican Church abandoned its parishioners" unfortunately tells only one side of the story of the parish of St. John the Evangelist in Calgary, which has been making news with its decision to leave the Anglican fold and join the Roman Catholic Church.

I am expressing a personal viewpoint, but one as a lifetime Anglican, with Anglo-Catholic roots who experienced eight formative years as a lay leader at St. John's in the 1970s and '80s. From 1981 to 1985 I was the religion writer at the Calgary Herald.

I have kept in touch with the parish since then, and preached the sermon at St. John's Centennial in 2005.

While Martinuk suggests St. John's departure from the Anglican Church of Canada might represent a reverse Protestant reformation, that gives it far more significance than it deserves.

I am sad for a parish that has been ill-served by some of its clergy in recent years and has moved to a very narrow conservative theology which is not in keeping with Anglicanism or Anglo-Catholicism.

St. John's can hardly be said to be thriving, yet there are much larger, thriving Anglo-Catholic parishes in Toronto and Vancouver which remain within the Anglican Church of Canada.

Read more:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Anglican+Church+didn+abandon+anybody/3991165/story.html#ixzz18OBWeblx

Original article here-

http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Anglican+Church+abandoned+parishioners/3921859/story.html#ixzz17388bboA