Dear Sirs,

Peace and Grace be with you!

The Anglican Diocese of Recife, Brazil - as all of you know - is composed by faithful people, both clergy and lay, loyal to the Anglican Communion and to the spiritual leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. For a long time you have followed its difficult challenge of keeping its autonomy, identity and beliefs, under heavy pressure, illegal actions and distorted versions from Brazilian Provincial Authorities. The Diocese has appealed to you since last year, looking for support and for a necessary and urgent institutional solution. Unhappily, no action was taken up to now.

The Primate of Brazil has used his position and presence, both at the Primates Meeting and the ACC Meeting, as a platform to his unilateral, partisan and untrue remarks. The Diocese of Recife did not had the same chance, and this is not fair and do not help the promotion of a solution that comes out from the truth and the justice.

The Diocese of Recife was clearly a victim of a strategy: the provincial acts of de facto intervention, crossing of boundaries and the creation of a parallel entity, without any canonical base, had the intention of provoking from us one of two attitudes:

1. to accept them and see the dismantle, stone by stone, of a work and a dream, being, then, "tolerated" by the one-party system that governs the Province; or

2. to react and to be accused of "insubmission". We had no other attitude than to choose the second option.

Our decisions have been always collective, but the Province leadership opted for personalizing the persecution in the figure of the Diocesan Bishop, denounced in a political motivated Disciplinary Process on the Ecclesiastical Court. For the other side, the Provincial leaders refuses to confess that the real reasons for the dispute is the deep theological and ethical antagonism that today's divides the Anglican Communion, and their intention to impose to all dioceses an ecclesiastical relativistic way of believing and living.

The Primate of Brazil did not listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury advises or to the Primates recommendations, and deposed the Diocesan Bishop of Recife before any action from the Panel of Reference, although Recife was the first to appeal to that Commission, since its creation, as a clear demonstration of disregard and disrespect.

Our people are becoming tired and disappointed, and see no place now for diplomatic actions based mainly in the post-modern relativistic language of "listen" and "reconciliation". What we do need, as soon as possible, is a time of protection, peace and healing, a safe harbor.

Our Proposal, then, for a fair and realistic solution for the present moment of the conflict is composed of the following items, that we ask your attention and consideration:

1. Immediate Revocation of the Diocesan Bishop Deposition;

2. Transference of the Diocese of Recife, to another Province, that recognizes fully the teaching and practice of the Anglican Communion, including the Human Sexuality until the next Lambeth Conference, 2008;

3. Creation, pro-tempore, of a Special Non-Territorial Deanery for the diocesan minority that wants to continue under Brazil's Provincial Oversight;

4. Designation of a Bi-Lateral Commission under the chairmanship of an outside figure, appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, for periodic meetings.

The Diocesan Standing Committee has called an Extraordinary Synod for next August, 6th, in order to study our situation and to take the decisions needed for our future institutional life, because we cannot live indefinitely under this heavy stress and menace.

Humbly waiting a concrete and positive response,

In Christ, our Lord

Rt. Revd. Edward Robinson de Barros Cavalcanti Diocesan Bishop
Revd. Mauricio R. Fernandes Coelho Chairman of the Standing Committee