Feheley received the Cross of St. Augustine at Lambeth Palace in November. Photo: Contributed
Archdeacon Paul Feheley, a church communicator and principal secretary to three primates of the Anglican Church of Canada, has received the 2024 Cross of St. Augustine for Services to the Anglican Communion. The honour is one of the Lambeth Awards, presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury each year to recipients in England and internationally.
Lambeth Palace said Feheley was being recognized for his “outstanding and effective love, wisdom and dedication to communicating the Gospel in the Anglican Church worldwide,” praising him as “a Canadian pioneer of Church communications.”
In the 1980s, Feheley founded and participated in the radio program Godshow and hosted more than 40 episodes of the TV show Anglicans in the Eighties. Through these initiatives, the citation said, “Paul presented the Christian faith in an intelligent, creative, and effective way, filled not with easy answers, but with engaged thinking.”
Feheley later served on the board of the diocese of Toronto’s newspaper The Anglican, as chair of the diocesan communications committee and, from 2013 to 2014, as managing editor of the Anglican Journal. He was principal secretary to three primates: Archbishop Andrew Hutchison from 2004 to 2007, Archbishop Fred Hiltz from 2007 to 2019 and Archbishop Linda Nicholls from 2019 to 2020.
At the 2008 and 2022 Lambeth Conferences, Feheley was seconded to the Lambeth communications team. He helped with communication for the installation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as at numerous Primates’ Meetings and the last six meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council; and assisted the Anglican Communion Office with communications committees and hiring communications staff.
The Lambeth Awards citation called Feheley “a valued seconded communications staff member to all of the instruments of Communion over 15 years” who “has worked consistently as a bridge-builder during times of significant stress in the Anglican Communion through his faithful, humble, prayerful ministry as a disciple of Jesus Christ.”
Feheley told the Anglican Journal he was overjoyed to receive the Cross of St. Augustine.
“You don’t do these things to receive awards,” he added. “You don’t do them to earn anything other than trying to do it for the glory of God. So this was both a wonderful surprise and a deeply appreciative moment for me.”
Since his departure as principal secretary in 2020, Feheley has continued to stay busy as Middle East partnership officer for The Episcopal Church and national director of the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer (Canada). He remains active in his Toronto parish.
Working with the Instruments of Communion over the years, Feheley said, had been a “fantastic experience.”
“When you do that kind of work, your own faith grows considerably because you’re having these opportunities to talk with others from around the world, learning about what their faith means, what their lives are like,” he added.
“Equally, you realize in many ways how the kind of life that we live is so blessed, while others have tremendous struggles. You want to learn from that and be able to share with them in those struggles. For me, it’s been a journey of faith that strengthened me and strengthened my whole understanding of Christianity within me doing these various pieces of work for the Communion.”
Feheley was one of 26 recipients of the 2024 Lambeth Awards, which were presented in November by the Lambeth Palace chaplaincy team instead of Justin Welby, who had resigned earlier that month as Archbishop of Canterbury.