When representatives of the Anglican faith from Western Mexico gathered in February in Hermosillo, they heard reports from congregations that range from cathedrals with many members to congregations that serve English speakers in Mexico to the tiny church of La Santa Cruz in Téroque Viejo, Sinaloa, where, as one delegate put it, young clergyman Luis Antonio Olivetto was sent to “this small and poor town, with nothing except his faith … to the point that he had to sleep on the church’s pews.”
Many came away from this meeting with the conviction that the mainline Protestant denomination, based in England and with a total of 39 provinces in North America, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere, has reached a landmark in the province of Mexico in 2014, over 100 years after the church’s inception here. This turning point is marked by environmental and other innovative projects recently undertaken by Mexican churches.
“We are at a watershed moment now — struggling and working hard,” said Habacuc Ramos-Huerta, for nine years the general secretary at the Anglican Church of Mexico’s provincial headquarters in Mexico City.
“In some small, local churches, people think we still have [financial] support [from the United States]. But they are starting to understand.” (He was not speaking of the handful of congregations serving English speakers, which are generally self supporting.)Ramos traveled widely and organized international meetings during his tenure as general secretary and returned to pastoral duties with the 2013 change in primate (the top-level Anglican leader in Mexico City). So he was well placed to observe the dwindling of U.S. support, which was planned since instituted in 1994.
“Twenty years ago, because of a covenant between the United States and Mexico, the total budget for all Mexico was almost one million dollars a year.” This plan included reducing support at a rate of four percent a year. “In a few years, it will be zero,” Ramos noted.
As a result, although dioceses in the United States aid projects in individual Mexican Anglican churches, in the province as a whole leaders are instituting new projects that aim to generate funds as well as attract members, plant new missions and preach the gospel.
“Of course, we are not giving up on idea of people giving in their local church — personal or family pledges,” Ramos emphasized. As an example, he said that, in the small, scenic town of Mazamitla, where he works as a missioner, “we meet in a house. People talk about buying a church. I tell them we must work and plan and do it ourselves. In three years, we’ll have most of what we need but we have to save. I proposed that everyone give at least one peso a day for three years. In a couple months, we’ll open a savings account.”
Financial mismanagement plaguing the Anglican Church in Mexico was in the forefront when Ramos began his leadership stint, but he thinks that issue has now been put to rest.
“We had problems, such as misuse of funds by a couple of Mexican bishops, and our reputation in the Anglican communion was bad. Primate Carlos Touché and I wanted to be known positively.”
Ramos said that he and Touché worked hard getting Mexican Anglicans involved in worldwide conferences and getting news about their work in Mexico on Anglican news services.
“Trust was our goal and it was regained by the time we left together in 2013,” he said.
One important development was spurred by the call in 2006 by the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion Office in London, Canon Kenneth Kearon, for the Anglican Church to focus on the environment and health. Ramos said that Mexican Anglicans responded by initiating projects at the local level such as organic gardening, schools, a water purification plant and a bakery.
“The Diocese of Mexico [around Mexico City] was the center of the missionary district, so of the five dioceses in the province, it was the most ready to go forward. They’ve spent a whole year working on the paperwork for a private high school and will start next August.”
Ramos said the purpose of the projects is to generate profits to make the Anglican Church in Mexico self sustaining and independent of foreign support.
At the February conference in Hermosillo, a delegate said, leaders decided to scrap a controversial taxi project which had been undertaken in the Guadalajara area. This leaves the diocese freer to work on projects related to Kearon’s focus on the environment and health.
Now, “organic agriculture projects are being developed in this diocese of Western Mexico,” Ramos said, adding that in the central diocese of Mexico, “more than half of the congregations are self sufficient. They get very little support from the diocesan budget.
“In the large Southeast diocese, which includes Veracruz, Campeche, Chiapas and Oaxaca, … the diocese of Chicago supports many projects, especially giving funds to start them. Once they start, the projects give jobs to local people. These are not always Anglicans, but it’s a method of evangelization too.”
He added that he thinks the projects are going well, and that the Chicago parish regularly sends support.
In Cuernavaca, a city famed for its language schools, the diocese of Los Angeles is helping a new Spanish school developed by local Anglicans.
“Every year, Los Angeles is sending a group of lay people and clergy there to learn Spanish,” he noted.