Bishop Robert Mercer's Intervention at the ACCC Synod

July 18, 2010
by Deborah Gyapong


Bishop Robert Mercer
The now retired Bishop of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) Robert Mercer, well-beloved in Canada, received a standing ovation after this presentation at the ACCC Synod. I have put it below the break, as it is rather long. Enjoy!

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“I am a Jew.” So says St. Paul. A lynch mob is about to do him in. A Roman centurion to the rescue. Paul says to Him, “I am a Jew.” A moment or two later the centurion allows T. Paul to speak to the mob. He repeats, “I am a Jew.” This well-known text is in Acts chapters 21 and 22.
Life is full of opposites. Tall, short. Fat, thin. Day, night. It was self-evident to Paul’s contemporaries that there was another pair of opposites. Jew, Christian. Either you were one, or you were the other. But Paul does not accept this...

To us and to our contemporaries, to Anglicans and to Roman Catholics, above all to journalists and newspapermen, it is self-evident that there is another pair of opposites. Anglican, Roman Catholic. Either you are one, or you are the other. In the fall of 2007 all the bishops and vicars general of the Traditional Anglican Communion unanimously approached the current Bishop of Rome. In effect we asked him, Must it be either/or? Can it be both/and? To our amazement, bewilderment and confusion, the Bishop of Rome answered Yes, you can be both Anglican and Catholic...

Read the rest of Bishop Mercer's intervention at the blog The Anglo-Catholic.