Newfoundland Nones

Once upon a time, we assumed that every Anglican had a parish that they belonged to. When the clergy visited hospitals, they could ask to see the ‘Religion List’ and find a list of all the Anglican patients who had been admitted. That way they could easily find all their parishioners and visit them that day. The privacy implications of that are staggering, and it is just as well that those days are gone, but that arrangement is a perfect example of how the sense of ‘belonging’ used to work in Newfoundland.

People will also tell stories of how the clergy used to go to the church on Sunday afternoons, and anyone who had just had a baby would come around to ‘get it done’. If anyone showed up, there would be a baptism that afternoon; if not, the priest went home early. The assumption was that all the Anglicans in the community or the parish knew how to get a baby baptized. They didn’t need to call their priest when someone was sick or in hospital. If you wanted to get married, you went to see ‘your’ parish priest and made arrangements, because if you were Anglican (or United, or Roman Catholic) you belonged somewhere.

Those days are gone...

This post originally appeared in the June 2021 issue of Anglican Life.

Click here to read the whole article.