Priest receives high honour

Archdeacon Paul Feheley has held a lot of positions in the Church over the years, from parish priest to principal secretary to the Primate. But one role has remained constant: communicator.

In honour of his communications work in the Anglican Communion, Archdeacon Feheley, incumbent of St. Michael and All Angels, Toronto, has been awarded the Cross of St. Augustine, the second-highest international award for service within Anglicanism.

Lambeth Palace conferred the award on Archdeacon Feheley in November for his “outstanding and effective love, knowledge, wisdom and dedication to communicating the gospel in the Anglican Church worldwide.”

Archdeacon Feheley says it is a “great privilege” to receive the award. Looking back on his efforts over nearly 50 years, he says, “It was an opportunity to do what God had asked me to do using the gifts that God has shared with me.”

As a seminary student in the mid-1970s, Archdeacon Feheley felt that the Church needed to explore new ways of reaching people. “We had been very oriented towards the pew and people coming to us, and I began to realize, as did many others, that there was a whole world that we weren’t reaching – often younger people but not exclusively. And the communications world, which at that point was mainly radio, television and the press, was a new way to do that, a way that we could open some doors for people to come and be part of community.”

In the early 1980s, he was a founder of and participant in “Godshow” on CFRB, at that time one of the country’s biggest radio stations. The show was lively and informative, offering different perspectives on faith and religion. One of the people he interviewed was the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie.

Archdeacon Feheley hosted more than 40 episodes of “Anglicans in the Eighties,” a cable TV program that presented the Christian faith in an intelligent and creative way. Archbishop Ted Scott, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, was also involved in the show.

While serving as a parish priest, Archdeacon Feheley was part of many communications initiatives at the diocesan level, including the Visibility Task Force in 1998 and the Communications Board, which had oversight of The Anglican.

His communications work at the international level began while he was serving as principal secretary to the Primate, a position he held from 2004 to 2020. He was part of the communications team at two Lambeth Conferences and assisted with the installation of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in 2013. He helped with communications at several Primates’ Meetings and the last six Anglican Consultative Council meetings. He assisted the Anglican Communion Office with communications committees and hiring staff.

His communications work took him all over the world and put him in many different situations, from holding daily press briefings at the 2008 Lambeth Conference to advising Archbishops of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Justin Welby on important stories of the day. “I’ve done a variety of things in the Communion, and each time it was a very special, very privileged occasion because you’re interacting with other Anglicans from around the world, and any opportunity to do that always contributes to your growth as a Christian person,” he says.

In its citation, Lambeth Palace said Archdeacon Feheley “has given outstanding service to the Anglican Communion as a Canadian pioneer of Church communications. He has been a valued communications staff member to all of the instruments of Communion over 15 years and has worked consistently as a bridge-builder during times of significant stress in the Anglican Communion through his faithful, humble, prayerful ministry as a disciple of Jesus Christ.”

Created in 1965 by Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, the Cross of St. Augustine is awarded to members of the Anglican Communion who have made significant contributions to the life of the worldwide Communion or to a particular autonomous church within Anglicanism. It is also awarded to members of other traditions who have made a conspicuous contribution to ecumenism.