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If yes, has the General Synod Expenditures Committee considered the implications?
Yes No
EXPLANATORY NOTE/BACKGROUND
The Communications Coordinating Committee was formed by Resolution A090 of the 2019 General Synod by amalgamating the Communications and Information Resources Coordinating Committee and the Anglican Journal Coordinating Committee. This resolution specified the mandate, governance, and editorial policy of the Anglican Journal as well as the existence of an editorial board.
Since the last General Synod, the Anglican Journal has been at the centre of a painful experience in the life of the church centred on sexual misconduct, the Anglican Journal’s role in reporting on the life of the church, and the supervisory oversight of the Anglican Journal by staff in the General Synod Office. This led to the resignation in June 2021 of the Anglican Journal’s editor as well as a reporter. Later in 2021, Archbishop Linda Nicholls addressed the matter in a meeting of the Council of General Synod. Her report at that time asserted that “the structure for Communications, including The Journal, that was approved by General Synod in July 2019 has not been adequately implemented. The changes to the Communications Committee; addition of the Editorial Board and clarification of responsibilities of various staff and management have not been thoroughly discussed and there is a confusion of roles and expectations.” That report committed to the “full clarification and implementation of the structure created at GS2019” as well as a review after at least 18 months to “evaluate whether changes are needed to this structure.”
The Council of General Synod (CoGS) has also discussed this matter. In statement in March 2022, CoGS identified that one “strand” of the controversy was about “journalistic policy and practice; in particular, the respective roles of journalists and management when the church is the subject of the story.” CoGS also asserted “as a matter of principle, that the Anglican Church needs and wants to nurture independent journalism of integrity in its print and digital publications.”
The Report of the Communications Coordinating Committee contained within the Convening Circular to this General Synod is effectively silent on all of these matters. Its report devotes a mere two sentences to the Anglican Journal. It refers only in the vaguest possible terms to the resignation of the editor and reporter. The report makes no reference to the failings in implementation the Primate identified in her fall 2021 report. Neither does the committee’s report make any reference to the work the Primate tasked the committee with in November 2021. Finally, the report of the Communications Coordinating Committee does not contain any report from the Editorial Committee, disempowering the body the church created to provide additional oversight of and assistance to the Anglican Journal.
This motion seeks to take steps to remedy the failings in Communications at the General Synod Office since 2019. It notes with concern the report of the Communications Coordinating Committee for its abundant failings. It directs the Council of General Synod to evaluate the implementation of A090 and report to the entire church. It requires that the Editorial Board, created by General Synod, report independently to General Synod.
Communications is one of the most important tasks of the national expression of the Anglican Church of Canada and it deserves proper oversight from the General Synod, particularly after the experience of recent years. This resolution is a step in that direction.
PROCEDURE FOR ADOPTION
(G)
In the normal course, an ordinary motion must be passed by a majority of the members of General Synod present and voting together.
Six members of General Synod may, prior to the question being put, require a vote by Orders, with a majority of each Order being necessary to pass.
If a question passes on a Vote by Orders, any six members (two from each of three different dioceses) may immediately before the next item of business require a vote to be taken by dioceses. A motion passes if a majority (or a tie) of dioceses vote in favour.
Source: Sections 4 and 5 of the Declaration of Principles and sections 18, 19 and 20 of the Rules of Order and Procedure.
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40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel basket; rather, one puts it on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but if it is unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. 36 But if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”
8 When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him, 2 and there was a man with a skin disease who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 3 He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Immediately his skin disease was cleansed. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”