Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, imposes ashes on the forehead of a child during an Ash Wednesday service.
Delegates from the Anglican Church of Canada recently met with their counterparts from other Anglican Communion provinces for the first Conference of the Anglican Churches in the Americas in Mutual Responsibility and Mission in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said it was good for all of the provinces in the Americas to have an opportunity to come together to talk about mission.
Primates from the provinces of the Anglican Church of Brazil, the Anglican Church of the Central Region of America (IARCA), The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Church of Mexico were all in attendance along with other clergy and lay representatives.
The primates of the West Indies and the Southern Cone of America did not attend but gave their permission for individual dioceses to attend, and the dioceses of Uruguay, Peru and Cuba sent delegates.
The Canadian delegation reported the controversy over same-sex blessings was not given much attention. “The fact that we met, and the focus was mission sends a really wonderful signal to the rest of the Anglican Communion that the churches in all of the Americas are really wanting to focus their energy on mission,” said Archbishop Hiltz.
Henriette Thompson, director of the Anglican Church of Canada’s partnerships department, said the conference was a good opportunity to discuss “the pressing matters and priorities facing the churches in the Americas and the Caribbean. “We have a certain affinity and areas of work that we share that are driven by our political, economic and social contexts,” she said.