Around Town: MVA’s municipal vision, World Cup, SSPX excommunication?

Tellison Glover, co-chair of the MVA Delegates’ Assembly, is with the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster.

Delegates from a diverse range of civic-minded groups recently met at Kerrisdale Presbyterian Church, hoping to influence the Vancouver election this fall.

Tim Dickau, co-chair of the lead strategy team for Metro Vancouver Alliance (MVA) wrote:

On Wednesday, June 15, representatives of 28 member organizations including churches, other faith communities, educational and community groups, and labour unions all gathered to affirm our campaigns around housing and climate – including a commitment to compel our municipal politicians to pre-zone church lands for social housing. 

On September 23, we anticipate gathering over 700 people for a Municipal Election Assembly where we will present these campaigns to the mayoralty candidates and elicit their responses.

It has been rewarding to see the growth of the organization’s membership and influence as well as the cross-sectoral relationships that prove so valuable on many fronts. Join us for the assembly at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church downtown. I believe that it will be one of, if not the major, civic events leading up to our municipal election.  

Delegates to the June 17 meeting approved four proposals – two related to housing and two to climate:

1. Pre-zoning for faith, community and non-profit owned housing development: “MVA commits to convening a roundtable of faith, community, and non-profit leaders to work with city housing planners to co-develop a proposed policy that reflects the sector’s current needs and challenges.”
2. Work with MVA to ask the federal government for $2 billion in funding for deeply affordable homes: “MVA commits to organizing and turning out broad-based support for an action with federal decision makers.”
3. Vancouver’s first Youth Climate Core Program: “(i) Secure matching funding through Youth Climate Corps BC. (ii) Work with the City of Vancouver and Board of Parks and Recreation to identify a project connected to the implementation of the Urban Forest Strategy. (iii) Recruit the first cohort of youth from within MVA member organizations to encourage youth to remain connected to municipal climate leadership beyond the job program.”
4. Commit to adding an articulated bus lane to a portion of Hastings Street: “Commit to implementing the necessary infrastructure for an articulated bus lane along a section of Hastings Street, as well as upgrading pedestrian infrastructure along the same route. Implement a transit-priority corridor on Hastings Street, modeled after Toronto’s King Street Transit Priority Corridor, by restricting through-traffic for private vehicles while maintaining local access. The project would improve bus reliability, speed and ridership; enhance pedestrian safety and public space through wider sidewalks, trees and street furniture; prioritize emergency vehicle movement; and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging a shift away from car use. Traffic wardens would support enforcement during the transition period.”

Tim Dickau and MVA lead organizer Audrey Guay are both leaders with CityGate Vancouver, which focuses on “developing networks of churches collaborating with each other and the wider city to address vital areas of need such as refugee displacement, food insecurity, poverty amongst students in school, unaffordable housing, underutilized church properties and the need for church renewal.” 

They have worked hard to rebuild the broad-based MVA, which had lost momentum following some major initiatives about a decade ago. The MVA held a large Municipal Accountability Assembly in 2014 and a Provincial Election Accountability Assembly in 2017.

Among other recent initiatives, they co-led a leadership mentoring group for 10 people in their twenties who are all new stepping into larger leadership roles with the MVA. 

Several mayoral and other candidates for municipal office attended the MVA gathering.

Go here for a video of the full MVA Delegates’ Assembly at Kerrisdale Presbyterian.

Bittersweet World Cup moment

Well, it is a bittersweet moment for the Canadian team, and for Canadian fans. We’re moving on to the knockout round in the FIFA 2026 World Cup tournament – but not in Canada, before hometown fans. The loss to Switzerland confirmed that.

But the moment must have been even more bittersweet for the two hometown players on the team. Joel Waterman and Niko Sigur were on the bench during the Swiss game, so, while they had indeed made the team, they did not actually get to play in front of the local fans.

If the team had won, they still might have had that chance. Now presumably not; they may play, but it won’t be at home.

Joel Waterman is a native of Aldergrove and played with Trinity Western University on his way to the professional leagues, where he is now with the Chicago Fire. He actually made the Canadian team for the 2022 World Cup as well – but has yet to actually play during a game during either tournament.

Waterman does not seem like the type to complain though. During a recent OneSoccer YouTube interview, he was asked what it’s like being in the Canadian camp again:

It’s still the same as as the first day I got called in. It’s always such an honour. I’m always going to be grateful for being called in, especially with how good the team is now and how far we’ve come since the 2022 World Cup, but even before that.

When the interviewer referred to Waterman’s humility and said he has observed that he likes to serve others, he responded:

I think with how important the World Cup is and football is and how it is my whole life, I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter, but I’m not a footballer first. I try and keep my faith in the forefront. . . . I’m not just an athlete, I’m a believer, my faith is my biggest thing.

Niko Sigur

The other local product is Niko Sigur, who attended St. Helen’s Elementary School in Burnaby.

CBC Radio’s Early Edition associate producer Joseph Otoo went to the school as students gathered for a Canada / Switzerland watch party. He interviewed a very knowledgeable grade two student and Sigur’s former coach, Anthony Canosa.

Sigur did not play against Switzerland, but he was called on as a substitute for seven minutes towards the end of Canada’s 6-0 victory over Qatar June 18 at BC Place.

Canosa said:

We live in a day and age where distractions are plenty for this young generation, and to see someone like him in a local environment shine like he has, and show what he can do with his God-given talent, it speaks volumes.

Best wishes to the Canadian team as they have to face tougher competition, away from home. And to Waterman and Sigur as they play their roles on the team.

SSPX excommunication?

A June 17 article on the First Things site states that members of a conservative Catholic group will be excommunicated if they follow through with current plans – and that could, indirectly at least, affect one local church.

George Weigel states:

The Holy See has declared that, if the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) proceeds with the ordination of bishops in July without a papal mandate, those involved in these illicit ordinations are automatically (latae sententiae) excommunicated – that is, excommunicated by their own acts.

One may, indeed one should, hope that it does not come to that. But even if the SSPX hits the brakes at the last moment and doesn’t commit formally schismatic acts, the grave problem posed by the SSPX will continue. . . .

In May, a distinguished Italian historian noted, with reference to the episcopal ordinations the SSPX intends to carry out and the excommunications that will automatically follow, that “what is set to happen in July will not be the building of a bridge but the creation of a new chasm between [the SSPX world] and the Holy See.”

True enough. That will only happen, however, if the 700+ priests, 200+ seminarians, and hundreds of thousands of laity involved in the SSPX continue to acquiesce, cult-like, in the heterodoxy of the SSPX leadership, whose claim to be the only true Catholics is what will detonate ecclesial bridges and create whatever sorry chasms follow. The people who find spiritual nourishment in SSPX Mass centers deserve better than that.

The image of Christi the King Church is from Dave Stewart-Candy’s ‘Old Heritage Churches’ site (https://oldheritagechurches.wordpress.com/2025/01/08/christ-the-king-church-sspx-langley/).

An article on the status of the the Society of St. Pius X in The Catholic Weekly last year began: “The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), founded by Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre in 1970, is not in full communion with the Holy See.”

Christ the King Church and Priory in Langley is part of SSPX, along with churches in Nanaimo and Vernon; there are more than 35 SSPX Chapels across Canada. Christ the King offers the Traditional Latin Mass and “serves parishioners from all over the Lower Mainland and northern Washington State.” 

A June 1 editorial by Fr. Dominique Boulet, Prior of Christ the King Priory, is titled ‘Fifty Years of Combat for Tradition: 1976 – 2026.’ He states:

Fifty years ago, Archbishop Lefebvre and Fr. Normandin [“expelled from his parish in Montreal for no other crime than saying the Traditional Mass”] were the vanguards of a battle that is far from being over, in 2026. . .

This year, in 2026, we reach another milestone, as the two remaining bishops of 1988 must transmit their episcopacy to carry on with the ‘survival operation’ of Catholic Tradition.

Let us pray for the leadership of the Society of St. Pius X, for the gift of fortitude, in the footsteps of the pioneers of Tradition.

Christ the King Church is not listed among the parishes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver.

Events are listed below, but there is also an Events page and a Jobs page on the Church for Vancouver site.