The Rt. Rev. Alba Sally Sue Hernández Garcia, Bishop of Mexico [City] was elected March 21 as the first female primate of the Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, the Anglican Church of Mexico.
Already a pioneer, as the church’s first and only female bishop, Hernández assumes her new role against the backdrop of a bitter schism that dates to two disputed episcopal elections in 2022, including that of her successor, Archbishop Enrique Treviño Cruz.
Mexico now becomes the sixth member church of the Anglican Communion to elect a female primate, following the Episcopal Church (2006), the Anglican Church of Canada (2019), the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (2022), the Church in Wales (2025), and the Church of England (2025).
The Anglican Church of Mexico became autonomous from the Episcopal Church in 1995, but close links remain and the church uses an adapted form of the familiar Episcopal Church shield as its emblem.
The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops passed a resolution on March 23 celebrating “the historic moment” of her election as primate and “express[ing] our commitment to upholding her in her primatial ministry.”
The resolution also acknowledges “the ministry that we share as we support and care for all innocent victims of the violence that affects communities along our shared border and as we defend the God-given human dignity of those who seek to immigrate to the United States.”
The 48-year-old Hernández is a native of Mexico City who prepared for ministry at her church’s Seminary of San Andrés and the Church of England’s Ripon College Cuddesdon.
Before becoming a bishop in 2022, she was diocesan officer for youth and women’s ministry, chaplain at the Seminary of San Andrés, and dean of Mexico City’s Cathedral of San José de Gracia.
Since her election as Bishop of Mexico in 2022, Hernández has served on the Commission for Theological Education in the Anglican Communion. She was also her church’s representative at a 2024 “Growing Together” summit in Rome sponsored by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission. That summit paired 27 Anglican and 27 Roman Catholic bishops for pilgrimage to Rome and Canterbury and joint acts of witness in their home countries. She garnered significant media attention as one of two female bishops participating in the summit.
The communiqué announcing her election said that “the Extraordinary General Synod of the Anglican Church of Mexico was held, duly convened and attended by delegations from the five dioceses that make up our Province, for the election of the Primate.”
But the bishops of two of the church’s five dioceses, Julio Cesar Martin of Southeast Mexico and Ricardo Gomez of Western Mexico, were conspicuously absent, and are unlikely to recognize Hernández as their new leader.
Martin and Gomez allege that the problems began with the April 8, 2022, synod in Monterrey called by the Diocese of Northern Mexico to elect a successor to former Archbishop Francisco Moreno. Five clerics of the diocese claim that they were barred from entering the synod and signed a public letter rejecting its election of Oscar Pulido as Northern Mexico’s fourth bishop.
The disputing clerics were backed by Moreno, who was still interim Bishop of Northern Mexico at the time, and when the synod was held two months later to elect a new primate for the church, two sets of electors were sent to represent the diocese, one by Moreno and one by Pulido.
Treviño, who was interim primate at the time, accepted Pulido’s electors. In response, Martin, who had been a candidate for primate, withdrew from the synod and claims that Treviño failed to achieve the canonical two-thirds majority necessary to become primate.
Treviño was recognized by the Anglican Communion Office as the church’s leader, but the dispute is still winding its way through the Mexican legal system, which strictly regulates churches under the Religious Associations and Public Worship Law of 1992.
Both sides claim to be the legal representatives of the Anglican Church of Mexico and allege canonical violations by their opponents. Mediation attempts led by former Canadian primate Linda Nicholls and Bishop Jo Bailey-Wells from the Anglican Communion Office in 2023-24 also proved unsuccessful.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly claimed that the emblem of the Anglican Church of Mexico is identical with the Episcopal Church’s shield.
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. An Episcopal priest, he has reported widely on global Anglicanism, and writes about church history, liturgy, and pastoral ministry.
