Thinking Anglicans first wrote about this topic back on 16 August 2006. Since then, I have written further to various CANA officials but I have never had any response from anyone.
The “About CANA” page has moved since last year, and is now to be found here. The second link to “Archbishop Peter Akinola himself says this elsewhere on the site” has now moved here.
Mark Harris returned to the subject yesterday in CANA and inventive storytelling. He writes:
I was surprised to read the following on the Convocation of Anglicans in North America website, on the page titled, “What is CANA”:
“ECUSA proved over and over again that it was unwilling to respect the faith of Anglican Nigerians by its divisive actions. One of these actions was that ECUSA unilaterally sacked the former Nigerian chaplain appointed to care for Anglican Nigerians in this country, the Rev. Canon Gordon Okunsanya. So, we can really say that ECUSA itself made the creation of CANA necessary. Necessity is truly the mother of invention.”
Necessity is actually the mother of inventive storytelling. I had thought that Thinking Anglican’s [sic] rather complete review of the matter might have caused CANA to change this bit of the story of their beginnings, particularly since CANA went to some trouble to revamp their web presence, but I guess not. Nothing has been done.
The idea that ECUSA made the creation of CANA necessary, on any basis having to do with the appointment of Canon Okunsanya, is rot.
Mark Harris also draws attention to the misinformation contained on the Frequently Asked Questions page of the CANA website:
Now CANA asks and then answers, in the Frequently Asked Questions section of its web site, “Is such an international connection unusual? (The connection is between CANA and Nigeria and their work in the US)
Not really. For more than 160 years (1607–1776), the first Anglicans in this country existed as a missionary outpost under the Bishop of London, England. After the American Revolution, the Church of Scotland [sic] consecrated Samuel Seabury in 1789 as the first bishop of the fledgling Episcopal Church. Most of the Anglican provinces in existence today started as the result of a similar missionary initiative. More recent provinces have had similar international sponsorship.”
Once again CANA needs to clean up its act: Minor points are overlooked… the Anglicans were not “a missionary outpost,” perhaps the clergy sent here by the missionary societies were missionaries. And, let’s see…oh yes, the Episcopal Church of Scotland [sic] did consecrate Samuel Seabury, but he was sent off to England and then went to Scotland having been elected by at least somebody in the US to some particular venue (Connecticut) where there was NO bishop in place. He was not a missionary from Scotland.
That’s the joy of a web site as opposed to a blog…nobody can comment and spoil your version of reality.
Very ‘sic’ indeed. And not least for the conflation of CoS and SEC! D’oh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Seabury#The_episcopacy sets out the story of Seabury’s consecration fairly well.
It’s all a little Orwellian, really. The particularly skewed version of history that simply pretends previous positions or iterations did not exist.
“Oceana has always been allied with Eastasia and always been at war with Eurasia.” Even though we all remember that a week ago she was at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia.
Or perhaps a more appropriate literary allusion would be: “Pay no attention to that mane behind the curtain.”
“the Episcopal Church of Scotland [sic]”
Is this “sic” because, IIRC, it’s the Episcopal Church *in* Scotland? (Or am I sic too? *g*)
It’s called the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The Church of Scotland is the established Presbyterian church.
Read about Seabury here:
http://www.scotland.anglican.org/index.php/about/history_chapter/6_risings_and_persecution/
CANA’s version of the history of the Anglican Church in America is just the latest in a long line of factually defective statements by, or made under the authority of, +Minns. As recently as December 2006 he was still claiming that CANA would win its lawsuit against the Diocese of Virginia for control of the property of Truro Church because “we were here first.” The parish’s own website makes it clear that Truro Church is the namesake, not the institutional descendant, of the colonial parish. There are two possible explanations for these misstatements: (1) His critical reading skills are such… Read more »
So, was there a break in apostolic succession in the Scottish Episcopal Church? I know that Rome claims a break with Parker, but do the Scottish Bishops come from the same line?
There’s some debates I stay try to stay out of. There’s no point talking to some people because not only do they not want to listen, they want to stop others listening as well. The difficulty is, as the bible tells us, that souls can actually manifest their demise by attempting to destroy that which will replace it. Major scale examples are the Romans and the Pharoahs. A minor scale example that occurred to me whilst recently re-reading the books of Samuel was for Saul. Saul was irrationally aggressive towards David as the holy texts testify. It appears Saul had… Read more »
Strange doings in Scotland at the Reformation including, as I recall, the hanging of John Hamilton, archbishop of St. Andrews “in pontificalibus”. A rump of “caretaker” bishops survived through the reign of James VI, largely through his patronage, but were not consecrated as bishops. In his DNB entry on John Spottiswoode, archbishop of St. Andrews from 1615 to 1638, A. S. Wayne Pearce states “later that same year [1610] Spottiswoode, along with Bishop Andrew Lamb of Brechin and Bishop Gavin Hamilton of Galloway, received episcopal consecration in England at the hands of the bishops of London, Ely, Rochester, and Worcester,… Read more »
Re other news about CANA – go to the web site for the Diocese of Virginia – and click on News of the Diocese. There you will find a brief account of the beginning of the lawsuit that the Diocese has brought to recover property from the CANA squatters. There is a link in that story to an ENS account with a bit more detail.
The Fairfax court ruled that the canons of the Diocese and TEC have standing in resolving the suit.
This is only the first step, but a hopeful one.