Misperceptions by Associated Press re CANA and Anglicans

The news from Connecticut this week that parishioners of Groton parish in the Diocese of Connecticut who wish to leave The Episcopal Church cannot, just like that, walk off with the property is good news. It may be, as Bishop Douglas is reported to have said, a sad circumstance in which there are no victors, but the ruling by the State Supreme Court is clarifying.  People can leave, but the property is not theirs by right. 

The AP report, by Dave Collins, reads, Conn. court: breakaway parish can't keep property. There is much to recommend in this article, but there are two glaring errors in the text. According to the Kansas City Star and the Associated Press, 

"Both the 2 million-member Episcopal Church in the U.S. and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America are branches of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, which traces its roots to the Church of England. Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment. The Convocation of Anglicans says it has 95 congregations and over 250 clergy in more than 30 states and Washington, D.C."

The errors:

(i) The Episcopal Church is a member of the Anglican Communion. CANA is not. 

(ii) The Church of England split from Rome under Henry VIII, but reunited under Mary and finally became again the Church of England under Elizabeth, became mostly Presbyterian under the Commonwealth and finally CofE with the restoration of the monarchy.  Most Anglicans (that is all the rest of us around the world that are part of the Anglican Communion) never split from anybody, but rather claim we are living out the faith of the undivided church in the midst of a divided Christendom.  

The first of these notes is just a fact.

The second may be choppy as history but it beats the hell out of the Associated Press' summation. And it is clear the reporter spoke to someone from CANA who was happy to give numbers of congregations and clergy, but apparently not so ready to give over all figures of communicants or members.

What is missing from the AP report is that CANA is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). CANA is not a member church of the Anglican Communion, but a jurisdiction of several bishops of the Church of Nigeria working away in North America, where there is in fact an Anglican Communion member church in place.

Too bad the AP got sucked in.