Anglican Church of Canada Indicted for violating Marriage Canons without Due Process

Jan 13, 2021 by

by David Virtue, Virtueonline:

The Anglican Church of Canada violated its Canons by affirming same-sex marriage without due process, say two authorities in a legal opinion by Mark Hill, endorsed by Norman Doe, commissioned by the Anglican Communion Alliance.

Professors Hill and Doe, based at Cardiff University, are leading international authorities on Canon Law.

In their legal opinion, they argue that ACofC Synod Chancellor David Jones’s memo of 2016 is “seriously flawed” and makes “disingenuous assertions”. They further arguing that to assert as Jones does that Canon XXI “does not contain…a definition of ‘marriage'”, it self-evidently does, clearly and in the express wording of the text of the Canon.

Whilst Provincial synods are entitled to agitate for a change in doctrine, they cannot act in defiance of, or contrary to the Church’s current doctrine, they write.

They blasted the notion that a cleric can solemnize a same-sex marriage when in fact it violates the provisions of a Canon of General Synod [on discipline] even if a bishop approves a form of liturgy for such “marriages”. They further argue that a bishop would be liable to disciplinary process as would any priest performing such a liturgy.

Only the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada has authority to define the doctrines of the Church. Neither a Provincial synod nor a diocesan bishop has the power to define doctrine, they say.

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