The Anglican Catholic Church of Canada is one of the churches that trace their origins to the Congress of St. Louis, the assembly that inaugurated the Continuing Anglican Movement and produced the Affirmation of St. Louis. The new church adopted the name, "Anglican Catholic Church." Its Canadian diocese shortly thereafter asked for and received a release from that body in order to become a self-governing Canadian church offering a traditional alternative to the more liberal Anglican Church of Canada. The Anglican Catholic Church of Canada is a founding member of the Traditional Anglican Communion, established in 1990. The ACCC is the third-largest of the Anglican churches in Canada, after the ACC and the Anglican Church in North America.
Traditional worship and morality
The founding members of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada were dissatisfied with decisions made by the Anglican Church of Canada to confer priestly ordination upon women and to make liturgical reforms that would evolve into the Book of Alternative Services. The ACCC continues to maintain an all-male clergy and recently has criticised what it considers to be the parent church's increasing acceptance of homosexuality. The church uses the 1962 Book of Common Prayer exclusively and rejects the possibility of remarriage after divorce.
Structure
The ACCC has parishes and missions throughout Canada. Most ACCC congregations are small, but the church continues to experience growth, particularly in the larger centres. The first bishop of the ACCC was Bishop Carmino de Catanzaro, who served until his death. The successive bishops, in order, were Bishop Alfred Woolcock, Bishop Robert Mercer, and Bishop Peter Wilkinson. In March 2013, the Very Reverend Shane Janzen was consecrated fifth diocesan and metropolitan bishop in Victoria, British Columbia. On November 1, 2014, the ACCC created two dioceses, one for the Western Canada and one for the East, each with its own Bishop Ordinary.
Until 2012, the TAC discussed a form of union with the Roman Catholic Church and stated that it had no doctrinal differences with Rome sufficient to prevent the success of this proposal. In October 2009, the ACCC welcomed an initiative from Pope Benedict XVI to create personal ordinariates for Anglicans. On March 12, 2010, the ACCC formally requested the erection of an ordinariate in Canada. Subsequent to the petition, seven of thirty-five parish groups removed themselves from the ACCC. To provide a means for some clergy and laity to join the Roman Catholic Church, in November 2011 the ACCC divided into two non-geographical dioceses: the original Diocese of Canada and the Pro-Diocese of Our Lady of Walsingham. On April 15, 2012, Bishop Peter Wilkinson and Bishop Carl Reid resigned their episcopal office and orders, and were received into the Roman Catholic Church as laymen. Bishop Craig Botterill became apostolic administrator until the election of the new diocesan bishop, the Right Reverend Shane Janzen, in November 2012. The remaining Diocese of Canada explicitly stated that it "will remain an Anglican church" and not enter the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.
