Report on January 20, 2015 Meeting about the Anglican Church Apology concerning Reverend Nakayama
This meeting was attended by
• The Venerable G Douglas Fenton, Executive Archdeacon, Diocese of New Westminster
• The Very Reverend Peter Elliot, Rector and Dean of Christ Church Cathedral
• Father Moses Daebin Im, Priest-In-Charge, Holy Cross Japanese Canadian Anglican Church
Attending members of the Japanese Canadian Working group (JCWG) were:
Judy Hanazawa
Emi Kordyback
Ron Nishimura
Lorene Oikawa
Naomi Shikaze
Lisa Uyeda
Regrets were forwarded by working committee member Joyce Chong.
Participants at this meeting shared feedback on the unfinished draft of the Anglican Church of Canada Apology to Japanese Canadians. Douglas and Peter informed working committee members the draft apology was reviewed and revised by the Primate of Canada Archbishop Fred Hiltz. Archbishop Hiltz is responsive to Japanese Canadian concerns, acknowledging the Church’s 2010 apology for the unjust sale between 1945 and August 19, 1949, (months after the first Japanese Canadians were allowed to return to Vancouver), of three pre-war churches of Japanese Canadian Anglican congregations.
The decision was made that the version of apology shared at this meeting should be approved by all working committee members. The Committee will inform Douglas and Peter as soon as consensus is achieved by the entire committee regarding Primate Archbishop Hiltz’s recent draft revisions.
We discussed the Church’s process for their completion of the Apology document. It is hoped that the Apology will be offered by the Bishop of Calgary and therefore must be acceptable to him in the first instance because Mr. Nakayama’s ministry was mostly based in Coaldale Alberta, which is in the Diocese of Calgary.
Once the Apology is offered by the Bishop of Calgary it will be distributed within the national Japanese Canadian community. In future, there will also be a community event regarding the apology. Committee members volunteered to research contact information for all Japanese Canadian community groups within the national community in preparation for conducting a wide distribution of the draft apology.
Although a follow up meeting time was not arranged, our committee will be meeting again with the Anglican Church to continue joint work on the Anglican Church apology.
Following the meeting with Church representatives, the JCWG met briefly with Father Daebin Im and a Holy Cross congregation member who had been a long term congregation member of the Coaldale Alberta church and moved recently to Vancouver. The member was interested in the work of the JCWG. Together we also discussed the possibility of hosting another community event in the spring to update the community about the current work of the JCWG. Information on JCWG activities and notice of events will continue to be provided in future editions of The Bulletin.
