St. John’s Anglican Church in Park City, Utah’s only congregation to break away from the Episcopal Church after its election of the first openly gay bishop, will join the new rival denomination announced last week.
The new group, to be called the Anglican Church of North America, estimates it will have 100,000 members, compared with the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. According to news reports, the proposed province would unite nine groups that have left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over the years, including four Episcopal dioceses and umbrella groups for dozens of individual parishes in the U.S. and Canada.
“It will create a larger network of churches and a stronger presence in the U.S., Canada and Mexico,” said the Rev. Doug Folsom, St. John’s pastor. “Being united, we are not just off by ourselves.”
The Bishop of Utah, herself a Stanford-educated Mormon like Mitt Romney, must be furious.