Many of you have probably seen the Latin phrase Habemus Papam floating around social media right after the new bishop of Rome was selected in the Roman Catholic Conclave. This Latin phrase means, “We have a pope.” It’s sort of tradition to say this after the selection of a new pope. I am happy for my Roman brethren that they have a new leader and I pray that this pope will be a good one because he is a world leader and a representative of the Christian faith to the world. However, as an Anglican I cannot and will not say Habemus Papam…what I can say is Habent Papam which means, “They have a pope.” As Anglicans, we (like the majority of the world’s Christians) do not answer to or follow the bishop of Rome. Our unity is not found through the leader of a single earthly institution but through the Bible, the Sacraments, and our shared doctrine as laid out in the Anglican formularies.

            People usually get this wrong when they talk about the Anglican Communion. For example, I recently saw an article from conservative news pundit Matt Walsh, who is a Roman Catholic, reflecting on the new pope. By the way, Robert Prevost (who has taken the name Pope Leo XIV), is relatively unknown and until he has actually done anything significant no one knows what kind of leader he will be. It is also pretty impossible to use the metrics of American partisan politics to evaluate and judge a church leader. But in Walsh’s article titled “The Left Discovered The New Pope Is Actually Catholic And They’re Horrified” he begins not by talking about his church but about Anglicans. He writes,

There’s quite a mystery unfolding right now at the highest levels of one of the largest churches on the planet. And it’s a pretty confounding question: Where exactly is the archbishop of Canterbury, the senior bishop of the Church of England? No one has any idea. To be clear, this isn’t a missing persons case. The post has been vacant for more than four months. And yet, to this day, the position still hasn’t been filled. As of May 12th, 2025, there is still no archbishop of Canterbury. And at least on paper, this is something of a head-scratcher. Here you have a Protestant church with something like 26 million baptized members all over the world, and hundreds of thousands of active members, by some estimates. It’s known as the “mother church of the Anglican tradition.” And yet, as of right now, there’s no clarity whatsoever as to when they’ll pick a new archbishop to lead the church. There doesn’t seem to be any urgency, either. Lawyers are reportedly getting involved for one reason or another. The latest estimate is that it’ll be several more weeks, at a minimum, until the Church of England decides who’s in charge. And it’s not as if this vacancy was a surprise. The previous archbishop didn’t die suddenly or anything like that. Instead, it was announced months in advance that the archbishop would resign, before he finally stepped down in January. But here we are. It’s now May, and the church of England still has no archbishop. The contrast with the Catholic Church, especially after the election of Pope Leo the 14th, could not be any more clear. 

All of this displays a complete misunderstanding of Anglicanism and how the Anglican Communion works. I also take issue with the triumphalist tone that Walsh displays here as if the speed at which they selected the new pope is evidence of their correct theology. The longest conclave in Roman Catholic history took THREE YEARS (1268-1271) to elect Pope Gregory X. So, either you’ve correctly interpreted Scripture or you haven’t, speed and efficiency are not really markers of superiority. Nevertheless, the reason Walsh gets this wrong is because the Archbishop of Canterbury is the Archbishop of the Church of ENGLAD not the entire Anglican Communion. In fact, bishops from around the world met in Kigali in 2023 and made a statement saying, “We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the other Instruments of Communion led by him (the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meetings) are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture. The Instruments of Communion have failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ… This renders his leadership role in the Anglican Communion entirely indefensible.” This document known as the Kigali Commitment also says, “Anglican identity is defined by [doctrine] and not by recognition from the See of Canterbury.”

            Since the Reformation, Anglicans have never had the same style of Church government as the Roman Catholic Church. The English Reformers were accused of “Greek and Bohemian Heresies”. What were these “Greek Heresies”? It was doing things like allowing clergy to marry, giving wine to communicants, and not recognizing the pope as the Vicar of Christ like the Greek Orthodox also practice and have practiced for over a thousand years. The way the Church around the world has traditionally been setup is you have the individual local parish/church led by a presbyter (also commonly called a priest), then you have a region of parishes led by a bishop called a diocese, and then you have a region of dioceses which is called a province. Examples of provinces would be the Anglican Church in North America, the Church of Nigeria, the Church of Rwanda, the Church of England, etc. One of the bishops in that province is elected to be the archbishop making him the first among equals. The bishops are held accountable by the synod which is made up of laity and clergy alike. In the ACNA our archbishop serves for a five-year term and may be elected to serve a second term and then after that he is done. Our bishops also meet in a conclave to elect the next AB. But the Archbishop of one province does not have authority to make decisions or influence another province. The Archbishop of the ACNA cannot make decisions for Rwanda or vice versa. And yet, people talk as if the Archbishop of Canterbury is essentially our pope. Where did this idea originate?

            As higher criticism infiltrated the Anglican Seminaries of the west it eroded faith in Scripture. As Protestants, we believe the Bible is our only infallible rule of faith, but slowly many of the clergy in the Episcopal Church, Church of England, Church of Canada, Church of Australia, and Church of New Zealand began to use German Higher Criticism to rethink the Bible and in many cases stopped believing that even it was infallible or that the miracles and historic events in the Bible were real. They looked at Christianity as a philosophy that teaches people how to be good but the truth value of the virgin birth and resurrection were not important. As stated above, Anglican unity comes from doctrine…so what happens when a bunch of provinces stop believing the doctrine? How can they be called Anglican? This is when they pivoted (and this was taking place during the last century not any time before it) to using ecclesial authority as the marker of church unity. So long as Canterbury gave you a thumbs up, you got to keep calling yourself an Anglican (even if you were essentially just a Unitarian Universalist). This is not how Anglicanism works…it’s also not how Eastern Orthodoxy works…nor Presbyterianism…nor Lutheranism.

            So, what I would say to Matt Walsh is, “I don’t care.” The selection of the new Archbishop of Canterbury does not affect me as a presbyter in the ACNA. It actually hasn’t mattered since the Revolutionary War when the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was formed because American clergy could not swear fealty to the King of England. But then this leads many critics both in the Roman Catholic Church a well as in various Protestant groups to say that without a central figure Protestantism will just continue to fracture into smaller and smaller groups. If Christ’s prayer was for his church to be one then how can we do that without something like a pope?

            First, I do not accept the premise that Protestantism is as horribly divided as people claim. It’s also important to note that there is no such thing as the Protestant Church. There are churches that would call themselves Protestant but there is no single ecclesial body called the Protestant Church. It is also not true that there are 40,000 Protestant Denominations. The same encyclopedia that says there are 40,000 Protestant Denominations says there are over 300 Roman Catholic Denominations. So basically, any time someone starts a new 501c3 that counts as a new denomination. In reality, there are essentially 7 main Protestant groups: Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Charismatic/Pentecostal, and Anabaptist. Both Global Methodist and United Methodist are Methodist…they are just different institutions. Both Southern Baptist and Missionary Baptist are Baptist…They’re just different conventions. And yes, I am including non-denominational with Baptists because their theology lines up pretty much perfectly with Baptists. If not then they would be in the Charismatic group. I am comfortable with this diversity because as Rick Warren said, “It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people.” And Article 18 in the 39 Articles of Religion says this, “They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light of Nature. For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.” Translation, you are not saved because you join the right denomination you are saved because you are united to Christ through salvation. It is interesting that the Articles do not explicitly define the Invisible Church as other confessions at that time did. It does define the Visible Church in article 19 as a gathering of believers where the pure Word of God is preached and the sacraments are administered but this article comes right after a lengthy exposition of salvation which means the logic of the Articles is that membership in the Invisible Church is just the same thing as getting saved (to use some Baptist language). So then, if we do not have a pope and we do not believe that you must be a confirmed Anglican to be saved…how do we fulfill Christ’s prayer that we all might be one?

            Christ gave us tools of unity along with his prayer for unity. Namely, the Word of God, Baptism, and Communion. I was recently interviewed by a Catholic Apologist who goes by the username Iron Inquisitor (his real name is Randall) and the subject of the Episcopal Church came up. The ACNA was formed as a place for faithful Anglicans who had left the Episcopal Church but Randall viewed this division as evidence that Sola Scriptura does not work because everyone has their own interpretation. But that’s missing the point of what happened. Those who went astray in the Episcopal Church had abandoned Scripture. They did not believe that Scripture is our only infallible rule of faith, it is fallible. So that’s where the disagreement started. What I find amazing is that when Christians plainly read the pure of Word together and do their best to interpret its grammatical-historical sense they come up with the same answers to questions. There might be disagreement on the finer points of doctrine but the path of salvation is very clear in Scripture and Christians across denominations study the same Bible and conclude the same things. When you believe the Bible is true and study it and try to conform your life to it then the Church will be one.

            Baptism and Communion are also tools of church unity. Ephesians 4:5 says, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Christians share in the one baptism of Christ. All orthodox Christians are baptized with water in the name of the Trinity. This is something we all share and in Romans the Apostle Paul says we are baptized into Christ. Thus, through baptism we all become members of his body. Then when we take Communion we are being reminded that we are living members of Christ’s body. It is THE tool of ongoing fellowship that Christ ordained. It is interesting that with all the claims of division amongst Protestants that with only a few exceptions all Protestants welcome other Protestants to receive Communion at their churches. Presbyterians and Anglicans can commune at each other’s churches. Meanwhile, Protestants of all stripes are forbidden to commune at Roman and Greek churches. You might also note that I frequently refer to Roman Catholics as just Roman and Eastern Orthodox as just Greek because I don’t accept that the Roman church is THE Catholic (which means entire) church or that the Eastern Orthodox Church is THE orthodox (which means correct) church.

            As far as how Anglicans find unity within our tradition specifically, we have not typically looked for a single unifying figure to bind us together. Instead, the Anglican formularies have been our tools of unity. The Anglican formularies are those documents which form us as Anglicans in particular. They are the Book of Common Prayer 1662, the 39 Articles of Religion in their plain sense, the Ordinal (the liturgy used to ordain people), and the Book of Homilies (a book of official sermons used to exposit Protestant doctrine during the English Reformation). In the canons of the ACNA it asserts that the 39 Articles are authoritative for Anglicans today. Despite some who wish to reformulate our doctrine to make us more Romish they must still submit to this formulary. For example, it is not correct for a confirmed Anglican to believe in Transubstantiation or to pray to saints. It is also not permitted to rewrite the Baptism liturgy or Eucharistic liturgy to reinterpret it into something else. When we use the same confessions and same liturgy that’s where we find a unified Anglican identity not dependent upon a single leader living in London.

            In conclusion, I am happy that my Roman friends have a new pope. He seems like a great guy and it was nice to see him vested in the traditional vestments. It is also pretty amazing to see the first American pope in my lifetime. I pray he does an awesome job. But it does not affect me directly in the slightest. My archbishop’s name is Steven Wood and we pray for him by name every Sunday. What Archbishop Wood does affect me and all Anglicans in the ACNA. True unity comes from the Word of God, the Sacraments, and for Anglicans it comes from adherence to our historic formularies. It is Archbishop Wood’s job to enforce that and protect our doctrine. May the Church be one!