Jacob Worley

Jacob Christopher Worley (born 1969) is an American Anglican bishop. Since 2024, he has been the second diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Cascadia in the Anglican Church in North America. He has also served as a priest in the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in America, the Church of Ireland, and the Anglican Church of Canada. In 2017, he was elected bishop of Caledonia, but the bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon did not assent to the election because of Worley's involvement in Anglican realignment under the Anglican Church of Rwanda.

Early life and education Worley was born in Alabama and moved to Gallup, New Mexico, around the age of five, where he was raised. He studied zoology and botany at Western New Mexico University, graduating with a B.S. in 1995. During his time at WNMU, he converted to Christianity and married his wife, Kelly. They have five adult children. After college, Worley worked for several years as a wildlife biologist in New Mexico, where he worked on wildlife censuses, habitat delineation, and environmental assessments for the United States Forest Service, the International Boundary and Water Commission, Phelps Dodge and the White Sands Missile Range. Worley was also a board member and teacher at Covenant Christian Academy in La Union, New Mexico.

"he majority of the House concluded that within the past five years the Rev. Worley has held—and continues to hold—views contrary to the Discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada,” Metropolitan John Privett was quoted as saying. "The view he held and holds is that it is acceptable and permissible for a priest of one church of the Anglican Communion to exercise priestly ministry in the geographical jurisdiction of a second church of the Anglican Communion without the permission of the Ecclesiastical Authority of that second church." Privett later told media that his comments were "off the cuff," based on Worley's then-residence in the Diocese of Caledonia. "In itself, it may or may not have been an issue," Privett said. "At that point, it didn’t seem to be, because he was functioning in the Diocese of Caledonia and I’d assumed that the Diocese of Caledonia had received him in due order. . . . It was only when it came to the House of Bishops, when we were looking primarily at the criteria in the provincial canon, that we recognized that we needed to look further than we had been before." Worley later said: "We were painfully forced to leave the Pacific Northwest which we know God has called us to." The editor of The Anglican Planet observed that "his incident has cost the Anglican Church of Canada a fine priest and should-be bishop in Jacob Worley and a fine bishop in William Anderson. It has devastated the Diocese of Caledonia, destroyed a parish and undermined the credibility of all involved."

Return to the United States and the ACNA After returning to the United States, Worley was in July 2018 appointed rector of St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Fort Worth, Texas, noted as a low-church parish in the Anglo-Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth. While in Fort Worth, Worley served as a board member of the American Anglican Council, on the diocesan executive committee and on the bishop search committee for the election of Ryan Reed. At the time of his election, Worley told the diocese that "the Lord put the Pacific Northwest in our hearts years ago when I distinctly heard Him tell me, 'These are your people. This is your place.' . . . When God calls us, He appoints us to a people, a place, and an office or task. . . . The people of the Pacific Northwest are our people. It is our place where we are called. And I know that I am called to the office of bishop because the local body of clergy and lay have affirmed it once already."