Fourteen Anglican Bishops March for Life

on January 28, 2013
(Photo credit: Institute on Religion and Democracy)
(Photo credit: Institute on Religion and Democracy)

Last Friday 14 bishops of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) came to Washington, D.C. for the annual March for Life. This year that march commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s notorious “Roe versus Wade” decision mandating abortion on demand.  As always, it was a freezing January day.  But the bishops joined at least 100,000 others for the march to the Supreme Court steps. The bishops were led by Archbishop Robert Duncan, formerly the Episcopal Church bishop of Pittsburgh.  They vividly contrasted with the Episcopal Church and other old-line denominations that scandalously and archaically still support unrestricted abortion rights through the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

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(ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan with IRD’s Mark Tooley)

ACNA of course was formed after the 2003 Episcopal Church election of its first openly homosexual bishop, creating a global Anglican schism.  Departing bishops like Duncan and many priests made deep sacrifice when leaving the old, declining Episcopal Church to create a new, theologically orthodox Anglican body.  Many congregations that left the Episcopal Church lost their buildings. But their sacrifice was not in vain.  Today ACNA has over 900 congregations, over 100,000 regular worshipers and 40 bishops.   And ACNA, unlike the Episcopal Church, is growing.

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(IRD’s Faith McDonnell with ACNA Bishop Julian Dobbs)

Before joining the March for Life, the 14 ACNA bishops visited the IRD office for a late morning breakfast.  We were greatly honored by their presence and a chance to tell them more about the IRD’s work.  I told them IRD likely has never had so much eclessial authority in our office at one time.  The bishops with great warmth of spirit prayed with us.  And much of the IRD’s staff joined them on the march.  With 35 percent of ACNA’s total bishops at the march, I suspect they had a higher percentage of their senior prelates present than any other major religious body in America.  I thank God for leaders like the ACNA bishops who are sacrificially working to renew Anglicanism and the wider church in America. And I am grateful that they so robustly witnessed in defense of vulnerable human life at the March for Life here in Washington, D.C.

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  1. Comment by Richard Hines on January 30, 2013 at 7:25 pm

    Who were the Bishops?

  2. Comment by Alice Colton on January 31, 2013 at 4:14 pm

    Thanks be to God for these faithful bishops and leaders who mean so very much to our branch of the body of Christ. The executive director of the Center for Pregnancy Concerns in Baltimore and a member of Anglican Church of the Resurrection, Carol Clews, was one of the excellent speakers at the March for Life. Our Bishop John Guernsey, is in the back row of your photo, second from the left.

  3. Pingback by Anglicans Celebrate, Protect, and Honor Life - Juicy Ecumenism on January 25, 2016 at 12:47 am

    […] and honor life. In the past three years, some dozen Anglican bishops and many of their wives have come to Washington, DC to join the tens of thousands of marchers who celebrate life, from conception to natural death, as […]

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