In March 2026, Alba Sally Sue Hernández García, 48 years old, reached a historic milestone for Latin American Anglicanism by triumphantly proclaiming the gospel in Spanish during the enthronement of Sarah Mullally, the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The image went around the world, the Mexican reverend, first at the helm of the Anglican Diocese of Mexico since 2022 and primate of the Anglican Communion of Mexico; however, while international flashes celebrated inclusion and diversity, in Mexico an internal storm ravages a crisis of power, canonical irregularities, and a suspicious state interventionism that seems to pave the accident-prone path that brought the “most reverend” Sally Sue to power.
In the most recent episode of Bajo Llave, journalists Juan Pablo Reyes, Lilian Reyes, Maru Jiménez, and Felipe Monroy dissect with journalistic rigor the dispute facing the Anglican Church of Mexico, an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion with only five dioceses, Mexico, Cuernavaca, North, West, and Southeast, and a modest presence of faithful that seems to be pulverizing. Their analysis leaves no room for doubts, the election of Sally Sue as primate at the General Synod on March 21, 2026, was marked by serious flaws that, for two of the five diocesan bishops, would invalidate it completely.
According to the analysts, the delegations from the West and Southeast were literally “locked up” and deprived of their right to vote, as established by the statutes of Anglicanism. In the midst of that climate of exclusion, the three remaining bishops, Sally Sue, then Bishop of Mexico, Enrique Treviño Cruz, of Cuernavaca and former primate, and Óscar Gerardo Pulido García, of the North Diocese, proclaimed the election and declared the seats of the West and Southeast vacant. Bishops Ricardo Joel Gómez Osnaya and Julio César Martín Trejo were defenestrated. For the journalists, this was not a mere theological disagreement; it was a coup that violated the synodal spirit of the Anglican tradition where laity, clergy, and bishops deliberate jointly.
The conflict escalated to the federal courts and highlighted the controversial role of the Secretariat of the Interior. Lilian Reyes was blunt: “I mean, she herself is validating, even though there is still an ongoing investigation, she is still validating one part of this church and that is also serious.” The two dismissed bishops were immediately erased from the Registry of Worship Ministers after a complaint filed by Treviño and Sally Sue’s group. Curiously, months earlier Gómez and Martín had filed their own complaints against Treviño, but the Interior Secretariat ignored them. The Director of Religious Affairs, Clara Luz Flores, even held public meetings with the new primate and disseminated them on social media, de facto validating the favor to one of the parties while the litigation remained open.
Bishops Gómez and Martín filed an amparo against the omission and the registry removal. Juan Pablo Reyes detailed the tortuous path: the federal judge initially ruled in their favor, but then denied them “legal personality” arguing that, since they were not recognized as bishops by the Anglican Church before the Interior Secretariat, they lacked legitimate interest. The Collegiate Court confirmed the decision. The case threatens to reach the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in uncharted territory: can the Mexican State decide who is the legitimate bishop of an autonomous church?
Behind the canonical dispute lies, according to Bajo Llave, a struggle for financial control. Felipe Monroy recalled that in 2019 the church began a process of financial autonomy, leaving behind dependence on British and American missions. The dioceses of the West and Southeast, under Gómez and Martín, managed properties, temples, and real estate registered with notaries and banks. The dismissal took away their legal signature and access to accounts. “The real problem is the money,” the hosts agree. The accusations of “thieves” and “fugitives” circulating in statements and social media have never been accompanied by formal criminal charges or arrest warrants.
Maru Jiménez provided the initial context of the synod’s irregularities, while Felipe Monroy and Juan Pablo Reyes emphasized a key point: the Anglican Church of Mexico is one of the Christian churches where the laity have real weight in decision-making. The synod is deliberative. Therefore, they argue, excluding entire delegations not only violates statutes but betrays the Anglican ethos. And the State, by accelerating the registry removal of two bishops without waiting for a judicial resolution, incurs an interventionism that contravenes the 2011 constitutional reform.
Lilian Reyes also highlighted that “the faithful have been delivering letters” and that support for the defenestrated bishops multiplies on social media. The Director of Religious Affairs has expressed electoral aspirations in Nuevo León, the state where the North Diocese, of Bishop Pulido, has weight. Treviño, former primate, seeks mediators while announcing his retirement. And the properties, some registered before 1992, remain in dispute.
The journalists conclude with analytical rigor: if the federal Judicial Power denies the amparo, as seems likely, Gómez and Martín could continue shepherding their faithful under another denomination in the schism under separate denominations like a new “Anglican Church of the West” or “of the Southeast” keeping out of the structure of the official Mexican Anglican Church led by Sally Sue. It would be the pulverization of unity. “The most harmed are the faithful,” repeat the four hosts because in the end, faith is not administered in courtrooms or Interior Secretariat offices; it is lived in the communities.
The case of Sally Sue Hernández García exhibits a rise in tension in the weak pulse that keeps Anglicanism alive in Mexico whose leaders seek to administer shock therapy to the agonized patient. Between the inclusive and modernizing impulse that has imbued that church with the appointment of women bishops, on one hand, it exposes the reverse of the coin with the need to respect transparent internal procedures contrasting with its pretended update. Legitimacy is not earned only with international honors. It is built or collapses in the coherence of synodal processes and in equidistance from the State. While the courts resolve, Mexican Anglicans await something simpler: that their pastors stop fighting over titles and privileges and demonstrate what they insistently want to annihilate: Their languishing communion.
Here the full analysis of Bajo Llave
https://youtu.be/6KhWqF3rKsc?si=aij_IfkMDIU0sNkv