Over the last four years I have had the opportunity to join an annual gathering hosted by Trinity Church Wall Street in various locations in Latin American and the Caribbean: Panama, Jamaica, Colombia and on October 24, 2019 in Curitiba, Brazil. Curitiba is a city of some 2 million in the south of that vast country.
The gatherings have grown over four years -- from 40 to 200 participants. This year the focus was on identifying and equipping emerging leaders.
What is so fascinating about these gatherings is the immense diversity within the Anglican Communion. The Church of England, then the Episcopal Church in the U.S., helped spread the Anglican ethos around the hemisphere. We were afforded simultaneous translations in three languages: English, Portuguese and Spanish. Brazil, having the largest African diaspora population in the world, has a culture to contrast with a large Afro populations in the West Indies and Central America. From Uruguay to Mexico to the Bahamas, we all found the Anglican way to be a way to root and feed us in our walk with Christ.
In many of these countries, except in the West Indies, the Anglican/Episcopal church is very small. They often live and work alongside the poorest of the population. They live as the earliest Christians lived -- on the margins of society.
Clearly there is a younger generation that is ready and able to assume new leadership. It is always a gentle challenge of how to encourage more senior bishops to retire and give way to younger leaders in countries where the pension system is not as secure as in our Episcopal Church.
There were presentations on best practices -- how to prepare for ordination in a digital world, how women are finding their voice and position in the church in new ways.
The days were packed. Presentations were many. But of all the learning I found was more important were the personal relationships made and deepened across regions. Learning about the youth work in Chiapas, Mexico, or the way that a Jamaican parish is healing and dealing with grief through a creative spiritual writing project, or how a new Brazilian bishop in the Amazon is speaking out against the rapid deforestation taking place in her vast region.
Anglicans to be sure are not united by doctrine nor hierarchy. Bishop Tutu says that we are Anglicans because we meet. I could not agree more.
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| Icon written by the Rev. Luiz Cuelo -- Mary and Child of the Amazon |
