Recently, Archbishop David Crawley, the Anglican Church of Canada's acting primate, spoke with CC.com -- and left no doubt what he thinks of their offer.

Archbishop David Crawley: The offer that the primates have made is improper within the understanding of the Anglican Communion…And so they're acting improperly and inappropriately. They know perfectly well that we have entered a process, at the request of that meeting of the primates last fall, to provide alternate episcopal oversight internally for dissenting groups. At this juncture they're behaving very badly. And I have, as acting primate, written them to tell them so.

CC.com: One of the issues from among those who have accepted this offer is that they have been waiting for --

ADC: That's rubbish. They have a bishop -- Michael Ingham is their bishop. Anglican parishes do not have the freedom to disassociate themselves from dioceses. We are not a congregationalist church.

Right from the very time that this motion was passed by [the New Westminster] synod [in June 2002], the synod itself agreed that they would provide alternate episcopal oversight. The national House of Bishops provided a retired bishop for them from eastern Canada who would have the same position as their alternative episcopal overseer, and they're not prepared to accept it, because they 'want a bishop with full jurisdiction.' Well, that can't happen. I mean, it's not part of our structure to do that.

In England, where they talk about 'flying bishops' -- and these people use that as an example -- they have less authority than the bishop who was appointed by the House of Bishops to provide episcopal oversight for these dissenting parishes has.

They say they've been without a bishop, but they have simply refused alternate episcopal oversight when it was offered to them.

CC.com: And there is that commission [of four bishops studying adequate/alternative episcopal oversight] that has yet to report.

ADC: Yes. It's reporting to the House of Bishops in April.

CC.com: So there is a process underway to try to resolve this internally.

ADC: It's inappropriate for those foreign primates to intervene at any time, but it's particularly unhealthy at this juncture.

CC.com: And so what can the Anglican Church of Canada do about it?

ADC: We cannot of course stop them from coming in. I mean, we don't have any legal power. Anything they do here is unlawful, according to our canons. The only way that any action can be taken would be the diocese of New Westminster might choose to act against the priests, the clergy. But the diocese can't deal with the primates. All they can deal with is clergy.

The Anglican Communion, uncharacteristically, does not operate on a written constitution. We are bound by common traditions and by a common understanding of how we treat one another. And when people choose to break the common understanding, we have no way of enforcing it. There is no authority in the Anglican church that can kick a province out of the Anglican Communion.

CC.com: As I understand it, the offer that the primates have made is not just for member-parishes of the Anglican Communion in New Westminster, but could extend to other parishes, perhaps even dioceses, across Canada.

ADC: Yes, I expect they'd be prepared to do that. They just have -- well, I won't say it. They have no business doing what they're doing. They just have absolutely no business doing it, and it's appalling that they're doing it.

CC.com: Are you concerned that with the offer out there, that other priests, other parishes, perhaps even dioceses, could take up the offer?

ADC: I don't know about that. There may be other places where they would think of doing that. But what they have to understand is that by doing so, parishes are reading themselves out of the Anglican Communion.

CC.com: Well, they would say that this offer allows them to remain part of the Anglican Communion.

ADC: No, because those bishops have no jurisdiction here. Anything those bishops and those primates do here is unlawful and improper. They have no jurisdiction. So these parishes are becoming outlaws. They fondly think that this keeps them part of it, but it doesn't.

CC.com: So you object obviously strongly to what has happened, but there isn't much you can do about it.

ADC: We don't have a centralized authority, like the Roman Church. And so there's not much we can do about it, except express our unhappiness to these people.

I think the whole thing's a bit silly myself. I think the primates from the global south who are doing this are -- well, I'm not sure of their reasons. I think they just fail to understand how our church works.

CC.com: Is this a subject that you could bring before the primates as a whole? Are there any avenues of dealing with this?

ADC: Yes, it could be brought before a primates' meeting, but there's nothing a primates' meeting can do. They've already said they shouldn't do it…

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