More Than I Can Say: Michael Peers: A Memoir (Book review)

Notes: Review entitled "Portrait of a leader in tumultuous times" of the new book "More Than I Can Say". "As primate of the Anglican Church of Canada from 1986 to 2004, Michael Peers faced turbulence in nearly every aspect of church life. He delivered a landmark apology in 1993 to native people for abuses suffered at church-run schools, chaired debate on the place of gays and lesbians in the church and celebrated a full communion agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. The Anglican Church was also restructuring in the face of declining numbers and finances. Peers is now 80. His leadership, nationally and internationally, will be the subject of analysis and debate for a long time. While those learned treatises are being written, 'More That I Can Say: Michael Peers: A Memoir' adds a layer of warm, personal perspective on a life lived very much in the public eye. Initiated by the current primate, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, and edited by Peers' former principal secretary, Michael Ingham (later bishop of the Vancouver-based diocese of New Westminster), the book stakes out its territory on the first page: 'a tribute to Michael from a grateful church'. Criticism, therefore, is in short supply, but when the 70 contributors range from Peers' wife, children and boyhood friends to Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, honesty is not".