Canadian Anglicans face possible extinction

TORONTO — A grim new report says the Anglican Church of Canada is losing 13,000 members each year and faces extinction by the middle of this century if trends are not countered.

Membership in the Anglican Church has fallen by 53 percent over the past 40 years and continues to drop by 2 percent a year, the steepest recorded decline of any mainstream Canadian church, the study says.

The Canadian report, prepared by Keith McKerracher, a volunteer adviser to the church, shows that between 1961 and 2001, Anglican dioceses’ rolls in Canada plunged from 1.36 million to 642,000.

And the decline is accelerating. Membership fell by 13 percent from 1981 until 1991 and by a further 20 percent between 1991 and 2001.