FURTHER STEPS were taken towards a conservative realignment in North America when the Common Cause Partnership met in Orlando, Florida, just before Christmas. Representatives of various ecclesial groupings “created the structure necessary for building a federation of orthodox Anglicans in North America”,

The partnership comprises the American Anglican Council; the Anglican Coalition in Canada; the Anglican Communion Network; Anglican Essentials Canada; Anglican Mission in the Americas; the Anglican Province of America; the Convocation of Anglicans in North America; Forward in Faith North America; and the Reformed Episcopal Church.

The meeting elected the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt Revd Bob Duncan, as moderator. Nine of the ten partners ratified the Articles of Federation. “Our actions today dramatically reversed the fragmentation and separation of the past,” a communiqué said.

The Anglican Province of America (APA), which is unable to ratify the Article, joined the partnership to “demonstrate that there is a spirit of unity among those who wish to take a stand against the spirit of the age of the Episcopal Church”.

But it has so far balked at splitting its membership over the next step, described by APA’s Presiding Bishop, the Most Revd Walter Grundorf, as an “appeal to the faithful Primates of the Southern Hemisphere for recognition to ultimately be the recognised successor of the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism in the Americas”. The APA meets to decide on 10-11 January.