+Andrew: Conversations with the Primate -- Transcript archive

This is a transcript of Archbishop Andrew Hutchison's first webcast - October 13, 2004

Welcome to the first in a series of conversations with the Primate. I am speaking to you from my office in the new Church House headquarters at 80 Hayden Street in Toronto.

During the final days of May and the first few days of June this year, the Anglican Church of Canada met in General Synod in St. Catharines. Bishops, clergy and lay representatives from the 30 dioceses across the country, together with ecumenical partners and international partners met to consider the agenda of the church for the next three years until the next General Synod. During that synod, the theme of the synod being "See I am making all things new," one novelty was the use of a telecast for some of proceedings of synod and including interviews with various people. We discovered that some 16,000 people were party to those telecasts. Now admittedly this particular synod had some very important agenda items among them a new Framework for Mission and Ministry for The Anglican Church of Canada; an address by Stephen Lewis on the AIDS pandemic and the commitment of the church to a new initiative to address that; a motion concerning same-sex relationships; and the election of a new Primate. No doubt all of those things contributed to the rather large audience. However we hope that over time, if we continue telecasts we might build a regular audience across the country.

I am speaking first and foremost to you as a committed member of the Anglican Church of Canada but recognize as well that there will be other people watching including other Canadians and including people from outside the country altogether.

Now as a new Primate it was very important for me to begin to look at some priorities for my agenda during the coming years and one of the things I have put high on that list is building relationships. There has been I believe a real disconnect between the General Synod and the church at the local level. Between Church House and the parish. Between the church and the media between the church and government leadership between the church and some of the issues of our society. In other words there is a real need to build relationships. Conversations with the Primate is one piece in a whole program of attempting to do that.

We'd like to invite you into Church House. We'd like you to know some of the people that serve you in so very many ways and we'd like you to be aware of developments within the life of your church as they happen. Now I say, "Conversations with the Primate," and of course conversations go both ways so I'll be speaking from time to time for 15 or 20 minutes and I hope that you will respond through emails. I'll appreciate your comments, your opinions, your questions and later in the telecast hope to address some of those.

First and foremost in building relationships is relationships among the bishops of the church who represent the local church, that is the diocese, in every part of the country. And what a country it is! From coast to coast to coast we include an incredible range of languages, cultures, histories and indigenous nations. All of which have their story to tell and all of which receive messages from the central operations of the church a little bit differently. So establishing very good and free and full relationships with bishops is a very high priority.

Establishing relationships with the media too often I think seen by the church as necessarily the enemy in fact they represent a wonderful opportunity for communication with not only the church but indeed with the society as a whole. We have some wonderful instruments of communication and information available through the national church headquarters. For example the Anglican Journal, Anglican Video, Ministry Matters, the website and many other instruments, all of which try to tell the story of who we are and what it is that Christ calls us to do in our time and in our place.

But it seems to me that we need more than simply information and communication. It seems to me what we need is relationship. So to that end members of the Church House staff will do their utmost to be present to the rest of the church that is to visit the church at the local level insofar as budget allows. We recognize also that in building relationships it's important to build relationships with other members of the Anglican Communion. That worldwide family of some 75 million Anglicans, most of whom no longer have English as a first language nor are they white. The average Anglican, if there is such a thing would be a woman and an African. That comes as something of a surprise to many traditional Anglicans who look with pride and joy to their roots in England. In fact over time the explosion of population among Anglicans on the African continent results in the western church now being in the minority.

Now we come back to conversation. And it seems to me that so many of the conflicts in the world and in the church have to do with people being left out of the conversation. Decisions are made, changes come about and people are left out of the conversation. Recently questions of same gender relationships, questions of the church's approach to homosexuality itself have plagued the Anglican Communion and the great majority of Anglicans feel that they have not been part of the conversation. So one of the things that I hope to address is developing better relations with our partners throughout the world. We no longer make decisions here in Canada with impunity. So many of the decisions that we make concerning the life and order and practice of the church have a profound impact in other parts of the communion and we need sensitivity towards that.

To that end in the early weeks of my new mandate I visited Lambeth Palace to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury and to begin to build a relationship with him because over time we will meet together as primates, we will have a great deal to do with each other and I think it is important that we have a relationship against which to deal with some of those matters.

I have written to my fellow primates throughout the Anglican Communion. So much of what is known about me and about the Canadian church is known through emails and news clips invariably with a prejudice of some kind so I have written to the primates simply to introduce myself and to introduce the Canadian church and the way we do things in Canada. In many parts of the communion the primate has an enormous amount of authority and is able to have an immediate and large impact on the decision s of his church. In Canada we operate somewhat differently. We have four ecclesiastical provinces each with a metropolitan and the Primate ordains no one and commands the judicial obedience of no one. He is rather an ambassador and a voice for the whole church and a representative to the rest of the communion and to the world. One of the emphasise in the new Framework for Mission and Ministry for The Anglican Church of Canada is that of youth and I will certainly make that a priority in my primacy. I really believe that there's a disconnect between the church and young people generally. Even young people perhaps in your own family are less inclined to be involved in the church and to understand its message and to hear that as important than they would have been a generation ago. So reaching out to youth and establishing a conversation with them will be very important to me. I have begun an email conversation already with the youth members of the synod and when I visit dioceses across the country I invite the bishops or who ever has invited me to try to include in that visit a youth event of some kind. When the chairs of our national committees came together and began to consider their plans for the next three years and their priorities I challenged each one of them to explain to me where the youth component in their program would be during these next three years. And those committees are working hard at it. I think you'll see some very interesting initiatives coming forth as a result of that.

Over time I hope to speak to you on items included in the Framework for Mission and Ministry. I hope to introduce you to some of the staff people here at Church House who forward those objectives on your behalf and over time I hope to respond to your comments and your questions. Please drop me an email, at the end of this telecast you'll see the email address, please take note of it. I'll look forward to hearing from you and let's continue the conversation.

God bless you all