In May, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, former primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, made the first of a series of pastoral visits to the diocese of Western Newfoundland. The diocesan executive council has invited Hiltz to facilitate discussion and reconciliation following a cancelled election for a new bishop, originally scheduled for April 25.
The Rev. Mickton Phiri, who is acting as diocesan administrator until a new bishop of Western Newfoundland is elected, says the diocese has gone through “a period of strain” following the departure of former bishop John Organ early in October 2025.
The circumstances surrounding Organ’s departure have proven divisive among clergy and parishioners. The synod executive requested Hiltz due to his long experience in pastoral leadership and his reconciliation work with Indigenous Anglicans, Phiri says.
“The senior executive was confident that [Hiltz] would be a good listener and [that] he would be able to facilitate conversations that are needed in the diocese,” Phiri adds.
Hiltz is scheduled for three more visits to the diocese over the next six months as he continues to listen to parishioners, clergy and diocesan leadership groups; compiles a report on the state of the diocese; and makes recommendations for further healing.
Dismissal of dean was followed by turmoil
Organ resigned and retired on Oct. 1 after a lengthy dispute over the results of an investigation into his conduct as bishop. In January 2025, Organ publicly announced the firing of the Rev. Catherine Short, dean and rector of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Corner Brook, N.L., during a livestreamed sermon. Short filed a misconduct complaint against Organ, the cathedral’s vestry resigned in protest and a group of parishioners opted to leave until Short was reinstated.
In response to Short’s complaint, Archbishop David Edwards, metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Canada, announced in June 2025 he had determined based on an investigation by the province’s misconduct officer, Jack Walsworth, that Organ had engaged in discriminatory practice regarding Short’s employment status, as well as emotional misconduct and bullying. Edwards called for Organ to re-instate Short’s licence to practice ministry as dean and rector of St. John the Evangelist and to apologize to Short, the congregation and diocese. With Organ having already tendered his resignation, Edwards also recommended that Organ take sabbatical leave until his retirement.
Organ initially declined to follow the metropolitan’s recommendations, calling the investigation unfair. After Organ retired, Phiri invited Short to serve as interim priest-in-charge at the cathedral. However, Short cannot be fully reinstated into her former position as cathedral dean until a new bishop makes her appointment official, Phiri explained at the time.
Lingering hurt and divisions mar election, search committee chair says
When it came time to select candidates to fill the role of bishop—which has been vacant since Organ stepped down—Canon Joshua Haggstrom, chair of the diocesan search committee, says the committee took a back-to-basics approach.
“We felt that given the place that we had found ourselves in as a diocese, because of everything that had gone on for more than a year at that point, what we needed was to get back to [clarifying] what a bishop is,” Haggstrom says.
To do that, the committee adopted broad criteria outlining the function of a bishop and selected a varied slate of candidates, he says. The intention was to let the Holy Spirit and the electoral synod have the freedom to select the candidate they felt would suit their needs, he adds, rather than narrow the field to the committee’s own idea of what the diocese needed.
However, during the process of consulting the diocese on what information they would need about the candidates to make their decision, Haggstrom says, a picture emerged of a diocese that was still deeply hurt and divided over the handling of Organ’s departure.
Groups formed within the diocese to support and even campaign for specific candidates, he says, which is not normally part of the procedure for an episcopal election. A gulf was increasingly visible between those who knew and liked Organ and either had trouble believing or felt his side was not heard in the investigation, and those who were deeply hurt by Organ’s conduct. Candidates began receiving questions from members of both those groups who felt the election process was not sufficiently addressing their concerns, Haggstrom says.
On Easter Sunday, each of the candidates received what Haggstrom describes as a “backdoor communication from a non-voting member of the diocese” asking “very direct and personal questions about things surrounding what had taken place in the diocese.” Between this communication and posts online suggesting some members of the diocese might challenge the results if a candidate they opposed won, Haggstrom says, the integrity of the election was now in question.
The selection committee held a meeting and determined it was time to cancel the election until the tensions had been resolved. The committee felt it would be unfair to expect any new bishop to handle a diocese carrying such tension, Haggstrom says.
“What type of position are we putting that individual in?” he asks. “Are we putting them in a spot where they’re going to be able to deal with everything, or are we putting them in the wilderness without any survival tools and asking them to survive?”
Hiltz sees path to healing through hope, prayer
During his May visit, Hiltz tells the Journal, he spent most of his four days simply listening. He met in separate sessions with diocesan leaders including Phiri and the Rev. Cynthia Haines Turner, co-chair of the diocesan synod executive council; the vestry at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist; clergy from the Bay of Islands/Humber deanery; and the search committee.
“I didn’t go in with an agenda. I didn’t have a laid-out plan,” Hiltz says. “I just went in understanding my role initially to be someone who will listen to them and be attentive to what it is they need to share, in terms of the pain some of them are carrying and also their sense of hope for the diocese.”
Hiltz says he was struck by the commonality of hope that despite the difficulty the diocese has been through, it can reach better times. The other theme he heard, he adds, was that the diocese must ground itself in prayer for the grace to work toward healing in good faith.
“People [want to] get past these experiences,” Hiltz says. “But sometimes before you can get past it, you need to talk about it. You need to get it off your chest. You need to get it out of your soul.”
The former primate says that need is more pronounced in some parts of the diocese than others—especially in the cathedral parish, where he intends to spend more time on his next visit. That work will need to be balanced with making sure those elsewhere in the diocese feel their needs are a priority as well, not lost behind the controversy over what happened at the cathedral, Hiltz adds.
“It’s the work of tending to the soul of the diocese. There’s a sense in which the soul has been bruised in different ways. But it’s for me to help them tend to the healing [and] to give that soul a sense of new beginnings, new hope.”
One exercise Hiltz proposes, once the listening process is complete, is for diocesan leaders and parishioners to spend time contemplating the prayers for the ordination of a bishop in the Book of Alternative Services.
In these prayers, bishops swear to “follow him who came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”; to encourage, support and nourish the people of their diocese; and to “be merciful to all, show compassion to the poor and strangers, and defend those who have no helper,” among other elements.
The congregation and consecrator, in turn, pray for God to enable the bishop as a true leader and shepherd, to unite the diocese’s members in holy fellowship, and to use their authority to heal, not hurt, and to build up, not destroy.
Like Hiltz, Phiri says he continues to see deep faith, commitment and love for the church among both the clergy and laity of the diocese. He says it is not yet clear exactly what Hiltz’s report will contain at the end of his series of visits, because that will be determined by the ongoing listening process.
Broadly speaking, Phiri says, the diocese is expecting reflections on the diocese’s status, on what healing has been achieved in the meetings to date, and recommendations for next steps to continue repairing relationships and orienting the diocese towards its future. He says it is not yet clear whether there will be a consensus among Hiltz, leaders and parishioners that the diocese is ready for a new episcopal election when that report comes out—or whether further action and time will be necessary.
“We hope that these six months will build a solid foundation for us to continue to build upon as we continue to heal together,” Phiri says.
