Letters to the Editor

The Anglican Journal welcomes letters to the editor. Preference is given to letters under 100 words. All letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Please include a mailing address.

Shame, not pride

I was dismayed to read “Igniting the Passion” [Jan., p.4]. I wish I could share the enthusiasm for the Olympic Games, but in a city where 3,000 people are homeless, where one in five children live in poverty, and where the staggering expense of a two-week spectacle threatens to bankrupt the city government, I feel shame, not pride.

Justin Berger
Vancouver

Shocked and diminished

I met Canon [Geoffrey] Jackson in Halifax, when he was promoting “Letting Down the Nets,” the church’s stewardship initiative. He had a wonderful ability to listen and did much work pointing the way to a greater understanding of stewardship in the diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. I am shocked and diminished by his passing [see p.6].

LeRoy Peach
Port Morien, Cape Breton

Missing something?

I have yet to see sufficient concern on the part of our church for the fast-emerging crisis in the environment. The topic has been moving to the front burner very slowly. And here we are, post-Copenhagen, and still no leadership from the church, at the national or the diocesan level. It astounds me, considering the message of Genesis. Read: stewardship. Where is that primordial charge substantially reflected in our worship?

David Major
Chester Basin, N.S.

Shining examples

The story of Beth and Ruth (Dec. 2009, p.14) affected me deeply. I was privileged to know both Ruth and Beth. Their commitment, faith, love and joy as they served God was palpable.

It is my prayer that gender orientation ceases to be a bar to ordination. I am glad that God chose both Ruth and Beth as priests and that Beth is now able to resume her priesthood.

Ruth will always be for me a shining example of the meaning of priesthood. She was an amazing woman. Would we had more priests like her.

Rene Jamieson
Winnipeg

Huge exodus

I read Bishop Dennis Drainville’s report about the decline of the Anglican Church in the diocese of Quebec with interest [Dec. 2009, p. 1].

I was born in Montreal, and attended the Anglican Church there for years. Our parish church was always packed with families on Sunday.

When I went back a few years ago, the congregation was tiny and aging. The priest told me that they had funerals weekly but almost never a wedding.

How could it be otherwise, given the huge exodus of anglophone Quebeckers from the 1960s onwards? Any viable solution to the decline of the Anglican Church in Quebec will surely have to involve more reaching out to the remaining (largely non-anglophone) population of contemporary Quebec.

Anne Thackray
Toronto

Keeping an open mind

Like many others I have been buffeted by the storms within our church. At the age of 75, I try hard to keep an open mind. It was therefore with great dismay that I read Dr. R.S. Mckegney’s letter [Jan., p. 5]. Having been in both camps, I found his attitude quite appalling. No one group owns our church and never will.

Nicholas Wilson
Richmond, B.C.