ACNA Approves Title IV Overhaul

By Arlie Coles I THE LIVING CHURCH I June 30, 2026

Comprehensive revisions to the Anglican Church in North America’s Title IV canons for clergy discipline were ratified by the church’s Provincial Assembly at a special virtual meeting on July 25, enacting the legislation passed unanimously by its Provincial Council a week prior.

The reform radically restructures the denomination’s processes for intake, investigation, and adjudication of reports of clergy misbehavior, quintupling the length of its provisions in an effort to address what the church’s Governance Task Force had called “grave inadequacies in the status quo… particularly in the case of our disciplinary process for bishops” and “a commitment to ‘minimalism’ that has not served the province well.”

“The approval of these revisions is the result of nearly three years of intense listening, consultation, and hard work across the province centered on a commitment to establishing clear rules, known in advance, and out in the open for everyone to see in order to restore trust in a faithful disciplinary system,” said the Rt. Rev. Julian Dobbs, the ACNA’s interim leader, in a press release.

Canonical restructuring

For bishops, the new Title IV provisions replace disciplinary canons dating from the ACNA’s 2009 founding, which were based on Episcopal Church canons that themselves predated landmark modernizing reforms in 1994 and 1997. No standing investigative body existed, and trial practice before a large court was inflected with the complex norms and delays of civil procedure in the absence of other rules.

Now, reports of episcopal misconduct that cannot be pastorally resolved will be sent to a standing Reports Investigation Committee, which will investigate and potentially refer matters for mediation or hearings. Hearings will be conducted by three-person panels of a new disciplinary tribunal and will follow streamlined rules.

These new bodies, directly inspired by the disciplinary structures of the Church of Ireland, also share features with the Reference Panels and Hearing Panels of the Episcopal Church’s current Title IV system, which was established in 2009 near the time of the ACNA’s separation.

“We believe the scale of the changes is commensurate with the scale of the need for reform, and so our maturing province needs maturing disciplinary canons,” said the Rev. Canon Andrew Rowell, chair of the ACNA’s Governance Task Force, during the Provincial Assembly meeting. “Our goal is, if you are an actor in a disciplinary matter… you will know what you’re supposed to do.”

The changes are part of the ACNA’s response to a recent spate of episcopal misconduct issues. Last December, the church’s trial court acquitted the Rt. Rev. Stewart Ruch of episcopal neglect following controversial closed proceedings that saw two prosecutors resign mid-trial.

The court is also currently processing matters involving the Rt. Rev. Derek Jones, who is accused of schism and mistreatment of chaplains, and the Most Rev. Steve Wood, the ACNA’s archbishop and primate, who is accused of personal, financial, and sexual misconduct.

Under the new Title IV, the “inadequately designed on-ramp for the discipline of bishops” has also been reworked, according to the Governance Task Force.

Instead of requiring three bishops or ten people to initiate a formal complaint against a bishop, as both the ACNA’s original canons and the Episcopal Church’s pre-1997 canons required, the ACNA’s new Title IV allows any person to open the process by contacting an intake officer, as the Episcopal Church’s canons allow today.

The previous intake process, which the Governance Task Force called “almost impossible” to use, had been a frequent source of conflict.

In the Ruch case, a dispute over whether three bishops had enough knowledge to swear to a complaint provoked a constitutional crisis reaching the church’s highest court. In the Wood case, eleven clergy and lay complainants were initially blocked from lodging allegations that lacked formal language requested by the provincial office.

With a lower barrier to entry, “it is easier to start the process — anyone may make a Report,” the Governance Task Force wrote, “but the offramps are many.”

Complaints may be closed at intake if a group including the intake officer and the archbishop agree that there are no reasonable grounds for continuing, after optional mediation by the archbishop if the complaint does not allege abuse, after investigation if there is no prima facie case found, after a hearing, or at any time if the bishop confesses to wrongdoing.

The revisions also provide a similar process for optional diocesan use to discipline priests and deacons, but dioceses may certify that they will instead use different processes “of at least equal fairness, transparency, and integrity.”

The new canons take effect January 1, 2027.

Pending disciplinary actions still under old canons

Bishops currently involved in ACNA disciplinary processes are continuing their cases under the previous Title IV provisions.

In June, the ACNA’s Court for the Trial of a Bishop denied Archbishop Steve Wood’s request to dismiss his case, granted his request to hold the trial in private, and denied the prosecutor’s request to allow the College of Bishops to observe the proceedings. (The church’s new Title IV enshrines the “public nature of judicial proceedings” as a norm, with exceptions for some situations involving minors or vulnerable adults.)

The court also stated that the Rev. Canon Jeff Weber, who presided over the procedurally troubled Ruch trial and whom the prosecution had sought to disqualify from Wood’s defense, “withdrew from representation of the Archbishop” on May 29.

The date of Wood’s trial, originally scheduled for July 20, is not stable. The court announced on June 19 that it would “reset” the trial date to October 26 on its own initiative, but softened a week later as it simultaneously rejected a request from Wood that the original date be kept and promised the trial would be held “no sooner than October 18, 2026.”

The court’s announcement expressed hope that the three-month postponement “will allow for increased cooperation between stakeholders regarding information that could evidence [the] truth but which has, to this point, not been forthcoming from several sources.”

Court rules regulate pretrial discovery of evidence, including through the taking of depositions and the production of documents, but the court stated that it “does not have the power to force” participation in its procedures. (The new Title IV imposes a duty to cooperate with requests for evidence, where noncooperation or obstruction may be weighed negatively at trial and, for clergy, may constitute a separate basis for discipline.)

“The Court is mindful of the need for a speedy trial in this case, but has weighed that need against the need for a full adjudication of these allegations, both for the good of the Church and the Archbishop’s own reputation,” the court wrote.

Separately, Bishop Derek Jones, who declared his separation from the ACNA last September, has not replied to the court’s summons, according to a June 4 announcement. According to the court’s rules, if a bishop fails to reply, the prosecution can request summary judgment, which could resolve the case without trial if granted.

In May, the Rt. Rev. Marshall MacClellan, the Rt. Rev. Mark Nordstrom, and the Rt. Rev. Michael Williams, suffragan bishops who followed Jones into his breakaway Anglican Reformed Catholic Church, were also indicted on charges of canonical violations and schism. The ARCC held a synod in mid-June where one new bishop was consecrated.

Civil litigation also continues between Jones and the ACNA. Jones’ chaplaincy jurisdiction’s federal lawsuit against the church, which alleges trademark infringement and unfair competitive practices, had stalled since January but was pushed forward in June when the ACNA filed supporting material for its motion that the court dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds, according to provincial chancellor Bill Nelson.

“The case is really a dispute over church governance and discipline and not a business dispute,” Nelson said from the floor of Provincial Council, adding that the church “[does] not know at this point when the court will schedule a hearing on this motion or take further action.”

Bishop Dobbs’ defamation lawsuit against Jones, not mentioned at either of the church’s two governance gatherings, also remains pending.

Arlie Coles is a lay Anglican from the Diocese of Dallas who writes about modern Episcopal history and polity. She is also a machine-learning researcher serving on General Convention’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property.