The Catholic Message Board

Today, Gafcon is leading the Global Anglican Communion. As has been the case from the very beginning, we have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion. At our upcoming G26 Bishops Conference in Abuja, Nigeria from 3 to 6 March 2026, we will confer and celebrate the Global Anglican Communion.
We resolved to reorder the Anglican Communion as follows:
1. We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered, with only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, “translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading” (Jerusalem Declaration, Article II), which reflects Article VI of the 39 Articles of Religion.
2. We reject the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.
3. We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority and overturned Resolution I.10, of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
4. Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.
5. Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks.
6. Provinces, which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.
7. To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or a diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.
8. We shall form a Council of Primates of all member provinces to elect a Chairman, as primus inter pares (‘first amongst equals’), to preside over the Council as it continues “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

https://gafcon.org/communique-updates/t ... s-arrived/

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 11:43 pm So we are back to my original question: what does it mean to be Anglican?

Cinderella, with amnesia.

She forgot who and what she left, so she will forever splinter and fracture.

Did the Church of England get any money from GAFCON churches? That now with this split they will no longer receive?


And if not, will there be any negative impact to the Church of England’s bottom line?

p.falk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 19, 2025 3:10 pm Did the Church of England get any money from GAFCON churches? That now with this split they will no longer receive?


And if not, will there be any negative impact to the Church of England’s bottom line?

No, each province in the World Anglican Communion is independent, similar to Orthodoxy, but before now, they all recognized Canterbury as "first among equals", although technically neither the Archbishop nor the monarch has ever had any authority outside England, the GAFCON churches recognized the C of E as a "mother church".

As it is, the Church of England is nearly extinct. In 2000, 31% considered themselves members of the Church of England; now it is down to 14%, and of those, 90% or more never attend church. Those beautiful churches Henry VIII stole from the Catholic Church 500 years ago are now empty. I suspect that in the next 10 years, many of them will close their doors permanently. The Church of Scotland and Church of Ireland, C of E surrogates, are even worse off. More than 1/2 of Church of Scotland churches have already closed, and many have been turned into nightclubs, bars, or dance halls.

Doom wrote: ↑Sun Oct 19, 2025 3:17 pm

p.falk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 19, 2025 3:10 pm Did the Church of England get any money from GAFCON churches? That now with this split they will no longer receive?


And if not, will there be any negative impact to the Church of England’s bottom line?

No, each province in the World Anglican Communion is independent, similar to Orthodoxy, but before now, they all recognized Canterbury as "first among equals", although technically neither the Archbishop nor the monarch has ever had any authority outside England, the GAFCON churches recognized the C of E as a "mother church".

As it is, the Church of England is nearly extinct. In 2000, 31% considered themselves members of the Church of England; now it is down to 14%, and of those, 90% or more never attend church. Those beautiful churches Henry VIII stole from the Catholic Church 500 years ago are now empty. I suspect that in the next 10 years, many of them will close their doors permanently. The Church of Scotland and Church of Ireland, C of E surrogates, are even worse off. More than 1/2 of Church of Scotland churches have already closed, and many have been turned into nightclubs, bars, or dance halls.

The same goes for the Church of Wales (Welsh Anglicans) and the decline there has increased since they appointed women priests then Bishops.

All the state churches in Europe are in rapid decline, there are many reasons for this but clearly one of them is that being state churches they have never been more than political entities which were created to serve government interests and now that there is no longer any coercion nor even social benefits to membership, there is no longer any reason for anyone to belong to them. The handful of people who were true believers are disgusted by the rapid secularization of the state church and have moved on to one of the free churches (free as in “not under government control”).

p.falk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 19, 2025 3:10 pm Did the Church of England get any money from GAFCON churches? That now with this split they will no longer receive?

It's the other way around, if anything.

A thought is that, with all the above going on, some parts and some people in Europe would benefit from Catholic missionaries.