wfn.org | Native Canadian Anglican bishop announces surprise resignation

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

Keewatin bishop announces surprise resignation;
Announcement comes on heels of absolution of church for wrongs done to
First Nations

Leanne Larmondin
Website Manager

Kenora, Ont.
Just weeks after stunning General Synod with an emotional absolution of the
Anglican Church of Canada and its leader, Archbishop Michael Peers,
aboriginal Bishop Gordon Beardy of Keewatin has announced  his resignation.

News of his resignation came via a letter from Archbishop Peers, the
primate, to the Canadian bishops and a letter to Keewatin congregations
from the diocese's archdeacons. Bishop Beardy's resignation takes effect
Aug. 15. He is on holidays and could not be reached for comment.

The Keewatin diocesan council will meet later in July to name an
administrator and set a date for an electoral synod; in the meantime,
executive archdeacon David Ashdown will run the diocesan operations.

Bishop Beardy, an Oji-Cree, lives in Muskrat Dam, a remote First Nations
community in northwestern Ontario, where he once also served as a band
councillor and chief. Ordained priest in 1992 and elected suffragan
(assistant) bishop of Keewatin just a year later in 1993, Bishop Beardy
became Canada's first aboriginal diocesan bishop in 1996.

In 1997, he began a 19-month, 6,500-km walk for healing of aboriginal
people. The walk was intended to raise awareness about the impact of
suicide and abuse in native communities and raise funds for healing and
reconciliation.

His diocese is one of Canada's largest, covering 482,790 square km (300,000
square miles). It comprises part of eastern Manitoba and northwestern
Ontario, from Rainy River and Fort Frances in the south, to Churchill,
Man., and Fort Severn on the coast of Hudson Bay. About half the diocese is
aboriginal.

"Bishop Beardy has been a dedicated and faithful servant of the people of
Keewatin," read the archdeacons' letter. "However, the call to serve the
needs of his family and his community has become overwhelming and after
much prayer and thought he is leaving his ministry as bishop of the diocese
in order to focus more fully on these needs."

Bishop Beardy, 51, and his wife, Clara, have seven children.

Archbishop Peers, meanwhile, wrote in his letter to bishops that he has
discussed with Bishop Beardy his call to serve elsewhere:

"Unlike the European pattern where individuals sense a call to ministry ...
in the villages of Keewatin it was the other way around. The community
chose and the individual then had to discern the appropriateness of the call.

"Gordon's service to his community, including his time as a chief, was
within this same pattern of vocation. His call to priesthood came the same
way and his call to the episcopate came (as it has to us all) first from
the community and then was accepted personally.

"I know that the same dynamics are at work in the present circumstances. A
vocation to serve God in a different way has arrived, and Gordon wishes to
accept it as he has all the other calls from God in his life."

Bishop Beardy's forgiveness of the church and the Primate came as a
surprise to many at the recent meeting of General Synod. The moment came at
the end of a healing service when Bishop Beardy, who was to give the
dismissal, turned to Archbishop Peers, saying: "I would like to say that I
forgive you and I want to forgive your church which has become my church. I
forgive your people who have become my people."

In doing so, the bishop explained, he was accepting the apology which
Archbishop Peers made to native people in 1993 for the role which the
church played in the residential schools system.

Bishop Beardy, who attended the Presbyterian Church-run Cecilia Jeffrey
Residential School in Kenora, Ont., for just one year at the age of 11,
never returned to school and did not even complete primary school. He told
the synod gathering that he was speaking not as a bishop, but as a former
student of a residential school.

"My children will hear what I said. My grandchildren will hear," said
Bishop Beardy. "For it is in forgiving that we can find peace and it is in
rebuilding that we will become strong again as nations."
- 30 -

Links:

Native bishop forgives church, primate;
'This is not a white church anymore' says Bishop Beardy
<http://anglican.ca/news/online/news.html?newsItem=2001-07-10_ll.news>

Sacred walk wraps up at Ottawa reception
-- November 1998 Anglican Journal news story
<http://www.anglicanjournal.com/124/09/canada02.html>

Diocese of Keewatin
<http://www.kenora.com/keewatin/>

Map of the diocese of Keewatin

http://www.kenora.com/keewatin/map.html

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Leanne Larmondin
Web Manager
Anglican Church of Canada
600 Jarvis St.
Toronto ON  M4Y 2J6
(416) 924 9199 ext. 307
ll@anglican.ca
(working from home)

http://www.anglican.ca
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