Three More Canadian Groups/Parilshes

My correspondent reports,

The bishop-elect mentioned in an interview that he had never been to Canada, so perhaps rather than starting with any of the three groups you have mentioned he will go first to Calgary, to visit Canada's only full parish. The nucleus of St John the Evangelist was the only group to be led in by a priest of the ACC. Members from two local ACCC parishes and an ACNA parish were soon added. Weekly attendance figures suggest that Fr Kenyon has been successful at attracting others, cradle Catholics or previously received Anglicans, as well. As we have discussed, the parish has an ambitious plan to purchase its building from the Anglican Diocese of Calgary. Lately,

however, I have noticed a few ominous signs. Attendance seems to have plateaued. Fr Kenyon noted in a bulletin put out before the building campaign started that the parish needed $5000 a week to meet its expenses. Until very recently, Notices which included attendance and the weekly givings have been posted on the website, and since the beginning of the building campaign the regular offering has rarely met this figure, although combined givings remain significantly higher. Now the Assistant Priest is being "released to the local diocese" as of February. The Notices do not seem to be posted any more.

Given the economic situation in Calgary, I suspect that this means that the parish is facing financial problems. This has been a bright spot in the Canadian Deanery, with many parish activities going on, and the apparatus of parish life--Parish Council, Finance Committee, website--in place and well-run. I am sure Bp Lopes wishes to find that this is one place he doesn't have to worry about. I am not sure that is the case any longer.

When Bp Lopes heads to Canada's west coast he will definitely find some challenges. The Blessed John Henry Newman Fellowship in Victoria, BC is moving out of the very attractive church it has been renting from the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia to share space with a local Catholic parish. This could be due to a number of reasons but I doubt that having outgrown their space is a possibility. There has been some coming and going, but I believe the group has 20+ members, including four clergy, three of whom are over canonical retirement age (the parochial administrator is in his 60s). There are regular parish activities, though publicised only to those on the email list; the webpage is not well-maintained. The new location is served by a bus which runs once an hour on Sundays, although the website promises transportation help to those who might need it. I would say that the long-term survival of this group is iffy.

The Vancouver group is definitely on borrowed time. It actually meets in Maple Ridge, a western exurb of Vancouver, at a church which is 40 minutes from downtown Vancouver by car and inaccessible from there by public transit on Sundays. There are ten members, including a family of five, plus the priest and his wife. They were all members of an ACCC mission which met in Abbotsford, a small city west of Vancouver, which is presumably why they now worship at this church. There is no website or Facebook page. No one has joined the group since it was received in 2012; the family is young but the other members, including the priest, are in their 70s. If/when their priest retires the group will fold, I assume. This group has been listed twice on the OCSP parish list since it was put up. The fact that no one in charge has noticed this never fails to puzzle me.