Virtuosity spoke with Bishop Cavilcanti about the crisis he faces.

VIRTUOSITY: Would you explain bishop a little of the history of how things arrived at the impasse that they have today?

CAVILCANTI: The Diocese of Recife was started as a "missionary diocese" in 1975 under Bishop Edmund Knox Sherrill with the support of SAMS-UK. The bishop stayed for 11 years, following which Liberation theologian Bishop Clovis Rodrigues, a southerner stayed for 12 years but caused tension with local leaders. Our diocese grew and became autonomous. The diocese covers the Amazon area in the Northeast region of 9 states and 40 million people. It is the oldest, poorest and most cultural homogenous area of the country.

VIRTUOSITY: What is the missionary history of the Province of Brazil?

CAVILCANTI: Anglicanism in Brazil, apart the expatriates, was the result of the missionary vision and work of four young graduates from Virginia Theological Seminary, lead by Lucien Lee Kinsolving (our first bishop), first as an independent mission under the bishop of the Falklands, then as a Missionary District of PECUSA.

From 1890 to 1949, under bishops Kinsolving and Thomas, we lived through a very dynamic “evangelical period”, with a growing church in the southern part of the country. From 1949 to 1961 PECUSA sent an extreme Anglo-catholic bishop, Louis Chester Melcher, imposing his ritualistic/sacramentalistic views, and doubting the need of evangelization: “Why to preach the Gospel if everybody is already baptized” (i.e. saved). He influenced the first generation of Brazilian bishops: pious, orthodox, but with a reducing emphasis in mission. In the 60 and 70 the church became stagnant. In 1975 it became an autonomous Province in the Anglican Communion. From the l970 on, by ecumenical and PECUSA influence (missionaries, books, scholarships, etc) the church, in a very fasten way, came under liberal influence (first, modern, then post-modern), and became the only declining reformed denomination in Brazil. Many congregations closed or elderly, reduced vocations, no missionary outreach, lack of influence in society, almost total dependence of foreign financial resources. ”Why to preach the Gospel if everybody is already saved” (universalism). The second generation of Brazilian bishops were liberal, and the evangelicals and charismatics lived as second class member, discriminated, and sometimes, even persecuted.

VIRTUOSITY: What is your background, and what is the make up of the diocese?

CAVILCANTI: I was elected bishop in 1997. I am a former Inter-Varsity staff person, founder and former Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization. I am the first and only evangelical in the Brazilian House of Bishops. We have 50 clergy, 45 were ordained since I became bishop, and 35 lay ministers with 34 of 44 congregations organized since I became bishop.

VIRTUOSITY: But you have lost some parishes have you not?

CAVILCANTI: In 2002 we lost some upper class congregations to the North American Charismatic Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Episcopal Church.

VIRTUOSITY: Tell us about your voting record?

CAVILCANTI: Following my election as bishop in 1997 I was the only bishop from Brazil that voted in favor of Resolution 1.10 at Lambeth '98 including those principles in the diocesan canons and I voted with the diocesan standing committee for the Recife Affirmation against the New Hampshire consecration of V. Gene Robinson, and against New Westminster and I lead the Diocesan Convention last December to pass a resolution of relationship with orthodox branches of Anglicanism, and for doing so we lost the companion relationship with Central Pennsylvania.

VIRTUOSITY: How would you describe the relationship between the Province of Brazil and your diocese?

CAVILCANTI: The relationship between the province and my diocese has been tense for 29 years but deteriorated sharply over the last year, till the Primate took action against me personally last month.

VIRTUOSITY: When did things start coming to a head?

CAVILCANTI: Last year we discovered small group of liberals in the diocese supported by the Province leadership. They came from the theological seminary (under provincial authority) where they created a cell of “liberal evangelicals” on sexuality and on comprehensiveness. The Suffragan Bishop was co-opted, and led the formation of a small parallel episcopacy, under the “Special Episcopal Supervision” of the liberal bishop of Brasilia, by an authoritarian decision of the HOB. All the Provincial financial resources to the diocese were transferred to the Suffragan hands. We were isolated and under pressure. My clergy and people do not want to be part of such a Church or to be under its spiritual and moral authority. They are hoping for help from the Anglican Communion from now until the Primates meet in February. Right now we feel abandoned. The first option is some kind of realignment. The diocesan leadership is open to looking for solutions, but if nothing happens, we will opt for an "extreme solution". We want to continue to be part of the Anglican Communion. The liberal and gay lobby in the church is disseminating false and untrue news about us. What is happening in Brazil is therefore something historical and deep. It is a real crisis. People are paying the price for their faithfulness, and we cannot disappoint them.

VIRTUOSITY: Please give us the context and the players.

CAVILCANTI: Today’s Provincial leadership is formed by two groups: the traditional liberals and the people who came from evangelical denominations aggressively attacking their past. These people tried to reproduce the ECUSA way of thinking and behaving. The House of Bishops, in 1997, produced a declaration on Sexuality as an alternative to Kuala Lumpur, implicitly accepting the different orientations as equal, and condemned only “negative behavior” in both. In Lambeth, 1998, the majority of the Brazilian bishops voted against Resolution 1.10. In a HOB meeting last year, the voted totally in favor of normalizing homosexual practice, homosexual ordinations, refusing only not to bless same sex unions “because the people are not yet prepared”. Many wrote or spoke openly advancing their positions. They did not want to have the tensions that would have resulted in changing the Canons, and opted instead for “advancing by practicing”.

The Brazilian Primate wrote an open letter to the ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold supporting Gene Robinson's ordination, based on Canon and Culture. In 2003, supported by ALGA (Anglican Lesbian and Gay Association), and in 2004, supported by Integrity, the ECUSA gay Episcopal organization, our Province sponsored two "Encounters on Human Sexuality" affirming the homosexual agenda, and negating the
Bible's authority. In 2004 a Provincial Theological Encounter made a clear option for supporting the broadest understanding of “comprehensiveness”: the church as a place for everybody’s position or behavior. The small Brazilian Episcopal Anglican Church, in the southern part of the country became, as a result, something odd and different.

VIRTUOSITY: What is the situation now?

CAVILCANTI: We are facing hard times and we need help. We are being suffocated. As part of the political intervention into the Diocese of Recife, the JUNET (council of theological education) organ of the province, without legal basis, withheld maintenance funds to Recife diocese. The council has alleged that this action is a response to my opinions. As a result our diocese is now without almost any money to pay bills, and function with the minimum structure. We urgently need $3.000 (US) monthly to run the diocese.

VIRTUOSITY: And the future?

CAVILCANTI: The liberals want to put me up for an Ecclesiastical Trial to throw me out of the church. Even if they succeed we will take our diocese out from under the Province of Brazil and seek ecclesiastical safety elsewhere. “I am not the first bishop to suffer for defending sound doctrine in Church History and I won't be the last."

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