The Diocesan Dialogue
Current Issue
September 2007

Companion Relationship Develops with Mexico, Utah

Text and photos by Charlie Knuth

For more than 20 years, Companion Link Relationships have been a means of developing mutual partnerships throughout the dioceses and parishes of the Anglican Communion, providing spiritual and physical connectors among our many churches and members.

At diocesan convention last year, the Episcopal Diocese of Utah entered into a companion relationship with the Central Diocese of the Anglican Church of Mexico.

In mid-June, 12 representatives from the Diocese of Utah (Kay Cook, Steve Alder, Rebecca Houck, Karen Van Winkle, Lucy and Kathy Stretch, Nicole Darcy, Barbara Burton, Sergio Gonzalez, Mary Janda, Toni Sutliff, and this reporter) were treated by the Bishop Carlos Touche-Porter and the Diocese of Mexico to a spiritual and cultural tour of Mexico City in order to help cement the new partnership between our dioceses.

What we saw was a vibrant and spontaneous culture and a form of Anglicanism that can teach us much about our role as a church. We also learned many important lessons in evangelism, growth, and spiritual vitality.

We flew to Mexico City full of anticipation and trepidation, uncertain how we might be received and how we would feel about the place and its people. A late addition to the roster of 12 representatives that the Diocese of Utah sent to Mexico City, I knew very little about the goal of our trip or the members of our group.

Before this pilgrimage (for that is what it was for me) I had only the faintest inkling of what a "companion diocese" was, and had only a few days prior learned that the Diocese of Utah and the Diocese of Mexico had such a relationship. Counseled by my grandparents before the trip, I was warned of the pollution, crime, and general lawlessness of the world's largest city.

Though I am a college student and therefore generally impervious to grand-parental advice, I was not reassured when I noted that the azure blue gate of the Anglican Center was topped with razor wire.

However, all of this apprehension disappeared when we were met by the amiable Most Rev. Carlos Touche-Porter, our personal guide to all things Mexican.

Though the Primate of Mexico, Bishop Carlos not only introduced us to his country and church, but picked us up at the airport and ordered our coffee for us. A man who truly embodies his faith and his nation, Bishop Carlos's hospitality and reassurance helped us to experience Mexico in an intimate and very special way.

Throughout our week in his charge, Bishop Carlos showed us a culture spanning the gap between the pyramids of Teotihuacan and the renowned 20th Century murals of Diego Rivera.

In between high cultural experiences, we navigated a sea of motor vehicles that were bound by traffic laws that a first-time visitor could not possibly fathom. We found ourselves walking and driving amid the innumerable momand- pop stores that line Mexico City's busy thoroughfares (entrepreneurs abound in Mexico City).

Included on our itinerary were shopping trips through the San Angel marketplace, tours of the National Palace, as well as pilgrimages to the Templo Meyor Complex, the National Cathedral, and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Worship services were an integral part of the trip and religious activities were constantly at hand, providing us with insight into cultural and humanitarian relationships.

Of all these sites and daytrips however, the Sunday Services we attended at the Espiritu Sanctu Iglesia, the Church of the Holy Spirit, proved to be one of the most memorable of our trip. This parish, whose graffiti-tagged sanctuary was originally built, we were told, a story above the street to avoid rocks thrown by Catholics, helped us visualize a concept that Bishop Touche-Porter called "popular Anglicanism."

According to the bishop, there are two expressions of practice in Mexican Anglicanism: traditional and popular Anglicanism.

These are not the traditional distinctions between high and low church, or even liberals and conservatives, and the distinction has nothing to do with churchmanship. They are not even parallel forms of Anglicanism, but as Bishop Carlos put it, "two expressions of the same Anglicanism that work together to witness to another expression of the Gospel in an overwhelmingly Catholic country."

While traditional Anglican communities are comparable in practice and temperament to our worship communities in Utah, the emerging and popular expression of Anglicanism is being shaped by the traditional rituals, myths, images, and experience of the Mexican people.

Firsthand, we found this popular Mexican worship to be a festive and joyful expression of community. These Anglicans certainly did not enter their church in reverent silence and quiet.

There were saludos, abrazos, y besos, greetings, hugs, and kisses between families and friends, and even the gringo visitors. It was clear that in this spirited community, physical contact and proximity was essential. The relaxed and joyful attitude pervaded almost every aspect of the service.

There was no concern for the blaring traffic just outside the windows, nor the dozens of flashes from Yankee cameras. There was no bulletin, a small band in lieu of an organ, and certainly no rush to get in and out of services in an hour.

Once the services concluded, the congregation presented us with a wonderful potluck. This was not the work of a welcoming committee or a sign-up sheet: the congregation was simply informed that guests were arriving, and they acted from the heart.

As the Rev. Canon Pablo Ramos put it: "Popular churches function through relationships, not committees." It was a concept certainly strange to all of us, but nonetheless delightful in its potential.

Though admittedly more of a traditional Anglican, Bishop Carlos believes that this popular Anglicanism could be immensely enlightening to the Diocese of Utah and the Anglican Church atlarge.

He says "I am convinced that many elements of the popular Mexican tradition are transcultural and could enrich Anglicans of other cultures in the same way that the transcultural elements of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon traditions have enriched those of us who are neither Celtic nor English."

While the Mexican Church can certainly give us fresh insights into sacramentality or conceptions of the afterlife through its dramatic holidays and rituals, popular Mexican religiosity has an even greater potential to help traditional Anglicans such as ourselves meaningfully connect with our everexpanding Latino population.

It was made clear to us by Bishop Carlos that for some Mexicans the Anglican Church is far more than just an Anglo service in Spanish. For many Mexicans, Anglicanism is not simply a transplanted English product, but a synthesis with thousands of years of Mesoamerican and Hispanic culture.

It is a faith movement that is authentically Mexican, that does not simply mimic the cultural forms that have been imported with classical Anglicanism, but applies an overlay that comes out of the Mexican experience of Christ.

Before we had even returned home, the Utah delegation expressed much concern about how to not only convey to our parishes and friends what we had learned and seen, but how we could repay the Mexican Diocese's generosity and further enhance our relationship.

We chewed over the question, "What can we offer the Diocese of Mexico?" After several meetings however, it soon became clear to us that there is no lack of potential human and material resources that we can offer to the Anglican Church of Mexico.

Proposed ideas include a special prayer list, an exchange of clergy and lay people for teaching missions and work projects, and an "Adopt a Seminarian" Program.

Though all mutually-beneficial proposals, perhaps the biggest thing that our dioceses can draw from each other is a stronger sense of our Anglican identity.

Both of our dioceses are small, comparatively liberal minority churches surrounded by a single, conservative majority church.

We are each mission churches with a strong desire to be accepting and respectful to those around us.

Sometimes you need an outsider to show you who you are.

As companion dioceses, hopefully we can remind each other who we are as churches and what we are witnesses to.

As Ramos put it, "I think that the Diocese of Mexico can show us who we are in Utah, and that we can show them who they are in Mexico. I think that oftentimes we see ourselves as something we are not and need a reminder of why we are here."

As Bishop Carlos said of his church's role in the Mexican religious scene: "Our mission is to faithfully witness to our neighbors another expression of the Christian faith."

Charlie Knuth served as a intern for the Diocesan Dialogue this summer. He is a student at Grinnell College and a member of All Saints, Salt Lake City.

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