Pope Francis has communicated his personal greetings and blessings for the new ministry of the Most Rev. Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America [ACNA].
Speaking to the congregation of over 1500 gathered at the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta on 9 Oct 2014 for the installation of Archbishop Beach as leader of the ACNA, the Anglican Bishop of Argentina, the Rt. Rev. Gregory Venables stated that he had received a telephone call last week from “Fr Jorge”, the former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio — now Pope Francis. Bishop Venables noted that he had long had a warm personal relationship with Pope Francis from his days as leader of the Argentine Catholic Church, and added Anglicans should rejoice in the current occupant of the chair of St Peter as he was a “Bible-believing, born again Christian.”
Watching and hearing +Greg Venables tell his story and pass on Francis’ greetings to ++Foley was one of the very top moments of seeing the service. A wonderful, awesome moment.
Near to this emotionally for me personally was seeing our rector framed alone, in a large image in the middle of the screen, as ++Foley was finishing up the second point of his sermon.
And, I do have to say that seeing glimpses of several with whom I’ve been lucky enough to meet, greet and shake hands with such as +Duncan, +Iker, +Lawrence, +Murdoch, our parish friend +Abraham Yel Nhial, South Sudan, and our own good friend and Bishop, +Bill Atwood, was a wonderful thing as well.
Nice!