The Secretary General\u2019s statement that The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is not a province of the Anglican Communion is misleading at best. It ignores the very process of recognition of the Anglican Church in North America by some GAFCON provinces as early as July 2009. It ignores the public and published recognition of Archbishop Foley Beach as \u201ca fellow Primate of the Anglican Communion\u201d by those Primates of the Anglican Communion who installed him as the second Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America on October 9, 2014. The Secretary General ignores the recognition of the Anglican Church in North America as a \u201cpartner province\u201d of the Global South by the Primates of the Global South in their October 2016 Communique.<\/p>\n
In other words, the process of recognition of the Anglican Church in North America as a member Church within the Anglican Communion is already a 10-year process initiated by Primates of the Anglican Communion, representing Churches of the Anglican Communion, and in keeping with their \u201clong-standing\u201d procedural authority to do so. It\u2019s certainly in the Secretary General\u2019s interest in his Report to take pride in his achievement in helping to form a new \u2018province\u201d of the Anglican Communion in Sudan. But that does not give him the right to take pride in misstating who decides membership in the Anglican Communion\u2014especially by usurping the rightful authority of the Primates to do so while they are in the middle of an already ongoing process of recognition.<\/p>\n