FOUR WOMEN NOW LEAD PROTESTANT CHURCHES IN CANADA

Canadian Governor General Mary Simon was joined by three leaders of Canadian church organizations for the site selection ceremony of the National Residential Schools monument on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on the 20th of June. Pictured here (l to r) are Her Excellency; The Right Rev. Dr. Carmen Landsdowne, Moderator of the United Church of Canada; The Rev. Mary Fontaine, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and The Most Rev. Linda Nicholls, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

It was a breath of fresh air to read of the recent election of Rev. Mary Fontaine as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, meaning that the Presbyterian, United, Anglican and Lutheran churches are now all headed by women in our country -- a Canadian record.

Mary Fontaine is Nehiyaw (Cree) from Mistawasis Nehiywak, Saskatchewan. She has a B.A. in Native Studies from the University of Alberta (1995) and an M.Div. from the Vancouver School of Theology (2003). She was on the Executive Committee of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (2010–2017) and convenes the National Indigenous Ministries Council of The Presbyterian Church in Canada.

In June of last year The Rev. Dr. Carmen Lansdowne was elected only the second Indigenous Moderator of the United Church in Canada. Born in Albert Bay, British Columbia, and a member of Heiltsuk First Nation, she was ordained in 2007 and is a prominent speaker and writer. .

The Most Rev. Linda Carol Nicholls is the 14th primate of the Anglican Church, having been elected in 2019, and The Rev. Susan C. Johnson was elected as the fourth national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada in 2007, re-elected again in 2016.

This group of distinquished church leaders shows the possibilities and potential for women in leadership roles in other church denominations in Canada, as well as demonstrating how far many have come in the past couple of decades.

The question of who leads a spiritual assembly is very much up to members of that assembly. Even the head of the Global Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justine Welby, has spoken out on the subject.

Addressing a conference on religion and media, Welby said the structure of the Anglican communion (which claims 85 million members worldwide) needed reform "so it is no longer invariably run by a white guy from England in a communion that is 90 per cent global south."