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TechnoratiSome Episcopal leaders have said Akinola's action would worsen an already fragile situation within the Anglican Communion, especially in the months before the Sept. 30 deadline outlined by the Primates in February, requesting the Episcopal Church to make an unequivocal pledge not to authorize same-sex blessings and confirm another openly gay bishop "unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion."
But "brokenness" in the Anglican Communion remains, said Akinola in a response letter to Jefferts Schori, and CANA was established to provide "a safe place" for faithful Anglicans.
"We are here to make sure that God's people have a home ... a spiritual home," Akinola said on Saturday.
Partaking in CANA's historic event, Simon Frank, a member of Mount Zion Anglican Church in Chicago, Ill., said, "I don't think the Episcopal Church believes in what the Anglican Communion stands for." Frank, a Nigerian, has been Anglican all his life and said CANA is a "nice turn for us to establish what we're intending to do."
If the divisions in the American church, however, are removed and the Episcopal Church is "back in line" with the Anglican Communion, the Church of Nigeria will be there to restore communion, Akinola told CANA parishioners in a renewed pledge which he had first made with the former Episcopal presiding bishop, Frank T. Griswold.
But the Most Rev. Leonard Riches, presiding bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, doesn't think the Episcopal Church is going to "reverse course." He said the Church of Nigeria and the American church have "competing agendas" with the former defending traditional faith.
The Reformed Episcopal Church is part of what Minns called a "common cause partnership." CANA isn't alone in this, the CANA missionary bishop acknowledged. Other dissident Anglican groups in the United States include the Anglican Province of America and the Anglican Mission in America among others. According to Minns, all the groups are working hard to work together and not be fragmented.
"There's been way too much talk" and "way too many meetings," said Minns. "We have Gospel work to do today."
It is not clear how things will turn out, he added. But for now, the work of the Gospel is urgent and the goal of CANA is to live out their faith in an "authentic" way.
