Canadian parish quits, but forgets to tell the vicar

Sunday, 26th October 2008
By George Conger

A rural Manitoba congregation has quit the Anglican Church in Canada for ANiC --- the breakaway group overseen by the Province of the Southern Cone --- but neglected to tell its vicar they were going.

On Oct 15 the congregation of St Bede’s Church in Kinosota, Manitoba, held a parish meeting under the presidency of its NSM curate, the Rev Jona Weitzel, and voted 29 to one to quit the Diocese of Brandon for ANiC.

However, the parish incumbent, the Rev Robert Bettson told the Anglican Journal the secession vote was not lawful. “I am the rector of the parish, and was not consulted about the meeting, which the canons of the diocese require,” he said.

Mr Bettson said he had dismissed the parish wardens and the diocese would assert its ownership of St Bede’s, for the continuing congregation. Built in 1842, St Bede’s is one of the oldest Anglican parishes on the Canadian prairie.

“It is a great joy to welcome the people of St Bede’s into a faithfully Anglican Church family,” said Bishop Malcolm Harding, ANiC suffragan bishop and acting territorial archdeacon for the Prairie Provinces. “By aligning with the Anglican Network in Canada, they join a growing movement of Anglicans throughout North America seeking to remain in the mainstream of global and historic Anglicanism. the rest