Anglican Church of Mexico


The Anglican Church of Mexico, originally known as Church of Jesus, is the Anglican province in Mexico, and includes five dioceses. The primate is Francisco Moreno, Bishop of Northern Mexico. The shield of the denomination uses the colors representing Mexico as well as those of the Episcopal Church recognizing its historical connection with the US church.

History

The Anglican Church of Mexico can trace its roots to the Mexican War for independence in 1810, and to the attempt in 1854 by several liberal minded priests who later supported the liberal Constitution of 1857 to reform the local Roman Catholic Church, but it was the Reform War that led to the foundation of the Church. Religious reforms in 1857 secured freedom of religion, separating the Roman Catholic Church from government and politics. In 1860, the newly formed Church of Jesus contacted the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, seeking Apostolic Succession. In 1879, the first bishop, H. Chauncey Riley, was consecrated. In 1958, the fourth missionary bishop of Mexico José G. Saucedo was the first of the Church's bishops to be consecrated on Mexican soil, being the de facto leader of the Mexican Church for the second half of the twentieth century leading the process for it to become an autonomous Province of the Anglican Communion on 1 January 1995, and being elected its first Primate Archbishop.

Membership

Today, there are 52 Anglican parishes in Mexico, 36 missions, and 12 other affiliated institutions.

Structure

The polity of the Anglican Church of Mexico is episcopal, as is true of all other Anglican churches. The church maintains a system of geographical parishes organized into dioceses. There are 5 of these, each headed by a bishop. Each diocese is divided into archdeaconries, each headed by a senior priest. The archdeaconries are further subdivided into parishes, headed by a parish priest. Several of the dioceses are named in Spanish merely for a compass direction — del Occindente, del Norte, del Sureste — which translate directly as "of the West" &c. However, the Episcopal Church and other English-language Anglican Communion sources instead render these names with "Mexico" — e.g. "of Western Mexico" — so these are the forms used on the English-language Wikipedia.

Diocese of Mexico

In 1879, diocesan bishop Henry C. Riley was ordained and consecrated by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America as "Bishop of the Valley of Mexico", to exercise oversight over the Mexican "Church of Jesus". Riley resigned in 1884 and the care of the independent church lapsed to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Henry Forrester, the church's local administrator, was elected Bishop of the Valley of Mexico, but died before consecration.
In 1904, the Episcopal Church formed all of the Mexican Republic into one Missionary District of Mexico, for North American Anglicans/Episcopalians in Mexico; and which the native Church of Jesus joined in 1906. That year, Henry D. Aves was consecrated first Missionary Bishop of Mexico and resigned in 1923. In 1926, Frank W. Creighton succeeded him as second missionary bishop. In 1972, the Episcopal Church divided the missionary district in three, creating those of Northern and of Western Mexico, and renaming the remaining portion as Central & Southern Mexico; on 1 January 1980, all three were erected into dioceses. In 1988/9 the Central and Southern diocese was again split in three, creating the Cuernavaca and Southeastern dioceses, the remainder being named, again, the Diocese of Mexico. The diocese today is based in Mexico City, where its cathedral is St Joseph of Grace.
Carved out in 1972 from the missionary district of Mexico; erected a diocese in 1980. Based in Monterrey, Nuevo León; where is the Cathedral of the Holy Family.
Carved out in 1972 from the missionary district of Mexico; erected a diocese in 1980. Based in Zapopan, Jalisco; cathedral of St Paul in that city.
Carved out in 1989 from the Central & Southern diocese in 1988/9; Cathedral of St Michael & All Saints, Cuernavaca, Morelos.
Carved out in 1989 from the Central & Southern diocese in 1988/9; based in Xalapa, Veracruz.
The Anglican Church of Mexico embraces three orders of ministry: deacon, priest, and bishop. A local variant of the Book of Common Prayer is used.

Ordination of women

The Anglican Church of Mexico allows women to be ordained as deacons and priests.

Social issues

The Anglican Church of Mexico only recognizes heterosexual marriage as the standard for marriage in the church. Upon the approval of gay civil marriage in Mexico, Primate Francisco Moreno expressed that the official stance of the Anglican Church of Mexico will continue in spite of secular legislation.
Only one of the currently active bishops has openly spoken in support of same-gender marriage, Canadian-educated Julio C. Martín, bishop of Southeast Mexico. And only one parish in the country, has publicly expressed support for LGBTQ unions.
In 2016, the General Synod of the church published a pronouncement declaring itself to be against all forms of violence and discrimination against migrants, victims of violence, or the LGBTI community.

Doctrine and practice

The center of the Anglican Church of Mexico's teaching is the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The basic teachings of the church, or catechism, includes:
The threefold sources of authority in Anglicanism are scripture, tradition, and reason. These three sources uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way. This balance of scripture, tradition and reason is traced to the work of Richard Hooker, a sixteenth-century apologist. In Hooker's model, scripture is the primary means of arriving at doctrine and things stated plainly in scripture are accepted as true. Issues that are ambiguous are determined by tradition, which is checked by reason.

Ecumenical relations

Unlike many other Anglican churches, the Anglican Church of Mexico is not a member of the ecumenical World Council of Churches. The denomination maintains ecumenical dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox churches.
The Anglican Church of Mexico considers itself to be a part of the Global Center seeking to reconcile the divide between conservative and liberal provinces in the Anglican Communion while respecting diversity of opinion and practice.

Bishops

Apostolic Succession
The episcopate of the Anglican Church of Mexico historically derives its Apostolic Succession from the Episcopal Church, however, a Church of England bishop and the bishop of the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church, both having been consecrated by the Primate of the Church of England, George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by Old Catholic and Irish bishops among them John Coote Duggan,
bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, of the Church of Ireland, and Joachim Vobbe, bishop of Bonn, of the Old Catholic Church, Union of Utrecht, participated in 2019 as co-consecrators for the 22nd of the bishops of the Anglican Church of Mexico effectively introducing the Dutch Old Catholic, the Irish and the English lines of Apostolic Succession into the Mexican Anglican episcopate.