As the Anglican Communion has developed in recent years there has not been a parallel development of a framework to address together a response to problems which arise in relationships between the member Churches. The Covenant puts forward such a framework, faithful to Anglican ecclesiology, within which a response to tensions can be discerned and articulated. At present, as no such mechanism exists, it has led to serious threats to the unity and integrity of the Communion.

The draft gives considerable prominence to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion which can make recommendations concerning the relational consequences resulting from actions by individual member Churches. It can make requests to Churches to defer certain actions, for instance. However, it will still be up to each member Church to decide how to be guided by any specific recommendations which may come from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, thereby respecting the treasured autonomy of the Provinces.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Guilford, the Rt Rev Christopher Hill has been elected vice-president of the Conference of European Churches (CEC).

On Dec 16 the CEC Central Committee elected Bishop Hill and the Rev. Cordelia Kopsch of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (EKD) as its vice presidents, and Metropolitan Emmanuel of France as president of the fellowship of 120 Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican churches in Europe.

Read it all.

The Taliban is a destructive force of darkness, said the former Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, putting him at odds with the new Bishop to the Forces, Dr Stephen Venner, who appeared to defend the Taliban this week.

In Standpoint magazine, Bishop Nazir-Ali writes: “Any abandonment of Afghanistan, at this stage, will create exactly the kind of chaos in which these movements flourish. It will, once again, bring about the conditions where the Taliban will return the country to the darkest night and also remove any incentive for Pakistan to engage with its own extremist groups, at least in the border areas.

“We should not underestimate its [radical Islam’s] capacity for disruption and destruction and its desire to remake the world in its own image. In the face of such an ideology, the international community must not lose its nerve. Any withdrawal from a political, military and even intellectual engagement will be seen as capitulation.”

Read it all.

Bishop Venner later apologised for his comment, saying it was ”one small phrase in quite a long interview” intended to suggest that not all members of the Taliban were ”equally evil”.

He told the BBC: ”If that has caused offence, I am deeply grieved by it because that’s the very last thing that I would want to do.”

The bishop also issued a statement condemning the Taliban’s tactics and expressing his backing for UK forces.

Read it all.

The Rt Rev Stephen Venner called for a more sympathetic approach to the Islamic fundamentalists.

The Church of England’s Bishop to the Forces said it would be harder to reach a peaceful solution to the war if the insurgents were portrayed too negatively.

His comments in an interview with The Daily Telegraph came as the Prime Minister visited Afghanistan and claimed that the Taliban was fighting a “guerrilla war” aimed at causing “maximum damage”.

Read it all.

High-speed broadband will become almost as basic a telephone line in the near future, the Anglican Bishop of Manchester has predicted.

Bishop Nigel McCulloch described as “rather too modest” the Government’s target of getting superfast broadband to 90 per cent of homes in the next eight years.

In a debate on the Digital Economy Bill in the House of Lords, Bishop McCulloch also suggested the “bar has been set too low in terms of universal connection speed”.

The Government is planning to impose a 50p per month tax on phone lines to pay for the role out of broadband in hard-to-reach areas.

Read the whole article.

A Church of England with women bishops will force more and more people to leave, a leading traditionalist has controversially forecast.

After the departure of Anglo-Catholics, the next group to have to go could be the conservative evangelicals.

The grim picture of a future church lacking the historic Anglican qualities of tolerance, inclusiveness and comprehensiveness is painted by Canon Nicholas Turner of the Bradford diocese in the Advent issue of NewsRound, the Bradford diocesan magazine.

In a hard-hitting think-piece headed Part of what we mean by Unity, Canon Turner, 58, commenting on Pope Benedict’s offer to Anglicans of a “personal ordinariate,” says the approach from “the first among bishops…must not be ignored”.

Read it all.

The whole Church of England must commit itself to reducing its carbon footprint by over 45 per cent by 2025, according to a leading diocesan bishop.

Church schools must also become “eco-schools” by 2015 and all parishes should be required to produce carbon and energy reports every year, he says.

The three-pronged demand comes from the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, in a think piece in the December issue of Crux, the Manchester diocesan monthly.

Read it all.

Confrontation is threatened by traditionalists in response to the latest news from the Revision Committee on Women in the Episcopate which has ruled out the structural changes demanded by those opposed to women bishops.

After its third meeting, the Committee said it was “unable to identify a basis for specifying particular functions for vesting which commanded sufficient support both from those in favour of the ordination of women as bishops and those unable to support that development. As a result all of the proposals for vesting particular functions by statute were defeated.

“The effect of the Committee’s decision is therefore that such arrangements as are made for those unable to receive the episcopal ministry of women will need to be by way of delegation from the diocesan bishop rather than vesting.”

Read it all.

Eric Kemp was not only the longest serving diocesan bishop of recent times but also the last “old-style” Anglican bishop who, once enthroned in his cathedral and ensconced in his palace, could retain his see for life. For centuries bishops were allowed, indeed expected, to hold their sees far into old age and die in office. Since 1975 the Church of England has required bishops to retire at 70, but the legislation did not apply to those already in post.

With the retirement of David Sheppard from Liverpool in 1997, Kemp alone remained. Hence it was something of an irony that Kemp, one of the Church’s leading canon lawyers and someone who played a large part in the revision of Anglican canon law, became the last vestige of the older order. He was Bishop of Chichester for 27 years from 1974 until 2001, 16 of them beyond the new retirement age, during which his contribution to the diocese, the Church of England and the wider Church was a particularly distinguished one.

Read it all.

Popular Christmas carols are ‘nonsense’ and have turned the birth of Jesus Christ into a fairy story, according to a respected bishop.

In a new book on the festive period, The Right Reverend Nick Baines, the Bishop of Croydon, claims some of the nation’s favourite carols are ’embarrassing’ and ‘inaccurate’.

He says the songs encourage people to believe that the story of Christ’s birth is as fictitious as Father Christmas or a pantomime story.

Carol lovers, however, defended the traditional songs and say they help people to look beyond a ‘commercialised’ Christmas.

Read it all.

Good morning. What I have been asked to do this morning is to report on where we are at this point of time in the Anglican Communion. It’s a fairly complicated picture so I hope I will be given the gift of clarity as I talk to you about this. Since the last time I reported to Synod on these matters, six things have happened. I want to delineate those six things and comment on them and then conclude by talking about a situation which at the moment is absolutely no threat to the Uganda Link but is a potential cause of difficulty in relation to our relationships with the Church of Uganda.

Read it all

The Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, told worshippers to wear crosses or fish symbols to demonstrate that Christmas is a religious holiday.

He also criticised “politically-correct” companies and local councils who sought to make the period a secular celebration.

Bishop Gledhill said: “Companies’ sacking those who want to wear a cross or fish lapel badge and councils rebranding Christmas out of fear of offending ethnic minorities are decisions made out of sheer ignorance.

“I think it wouldn’t be a bad thing if in December all Christians wore a fish badge or cross necklace and sent out a loud message that Christians aren’t going to disappear quietly from the Christmas market place.”

Read it all.

It is important in the light of some awkward feelings, particularly about the way the news of the Apostolic Constitution was handled, that the Pope and Archbishop restated their intent to continue and consolidate the ecumenical relations between our Churches and drew attention to the preparatory work presently under way for the next phase of the ARCIC official dialogue.

I will be in Rome this week for the Informal Talks between the Vatican and the Anglican Communion. These annual, official, in camera conversations cover our shared agenda as Churches, including our formal ecumenical instruments, ARCIC (the theological dialogue) and IARCCUM (the commission on mission and unity) and other aspects of our joint international relations. The recent private conversations between His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury appear to have set the tone for fruitful working meetings this week.

Read it all.

A move to severely restrict the number of people whose details are held on the national DNA database has been supported by the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln.

Bishop John Saxbee said the move could help to end a “culture of growing mistrust”.

Tory and Liberal Democrat peers made an attempt in the House of Lords to cut down on the number of innocent people whose profiles are kept on the database. The Government is currently considering its position after the European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that keeping samples from all suspects, whether charged or not, was “blanket and indiscriminate”.

Read it all.

The 13th of December is the defining moment for faith organizations and churches to conduct a church service and ring bells, sound conch shells, or beat drums or gongs 350 times.

For centuries, across the world musical instruments like bells and drums have been used to warn people of imminent danger ”“ but also to call people to religious service, marking important moments in worship and seeking to connect to God. Sunday 13 December marks the height of the talks at United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

At 3 p.m. ”“ marking the end of a high profile ecumenical celebration at the Lutheran Cathedral in Copenhagen, the Church of Our Lady where the Archbishop of Canterbury will be preaching ”“ the churches in Denmark will ring their bells, and Christians around the world are invited to echo them by sounding their own bells, shells, drums, gongs or horns 350 times.

Ecumenical partners, including the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, envisage a chain of chimes and prayers stretching in a time-line from the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific ”“ where the day first begins and where the effects of climate change are already felt today ”“ to northern Europe and across the globe.

Read the whole thing.

From here:

The decision of the General Synod’s Revision Committee to back away from proposals to give opponents of women bishops a way of staying in the Church of England has “overturned the will of Synod, created the spectre of confrontation, and risks extending the controversy for another five years,” according to the chairman of Reform, the Rev’d Rod Thomas.

Responding to the announcement made on Saturday 14th November that the Revision Committee had failed to approve the transfer of jurisdiction from female to male bishops where parishes could not accept their oversight, Rod Thomas said:

“At last February’s General Synod there was a clear desire to provide legislative safeguards for those who could not, in conscience, accept the oversight of women bishops. This has now been overturned by the Revision Committee. Whereas there was a prospect of agreement, the Revision Committee has now set the General Synod on a course of confrontation. It has served the Church badly.

“There has been much speculation about Anglo-Catholics leaving the Church of England for Rome. What has been overlooked is the number of large evangelical churches which the Church of England now risks losing ”“ not to Rome, but to independence or alternative Anglican affiliations.

“Within the General Synod there will be many who will be deeply unhappy at the bullying tactics being used to dismiss opponents of the proposed new legislation. Some evangelicals who do support the introduction of women bishops will nevertheless vote against proposals which have the effect of excluding other evangelicals. This means that by the time the proposals have finished their tortuous progress through the General Synod, they will be likely to fail, since they will be unable to garner the two thirds majority support needed.

“It may be that in the providence of God, the result of the Revision Committee’s decision may be the reverse of what they intend: that this unbiblical move to put women in positions of headship in the church will fail. Reform will now renew its commitment to work towards this outcome.”

THE Church of England was born in compromise. Or so it says in the preface to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Its ability to compromise is its “wisdom”, say the preface’s compilers.
But where is that wisdom now? Has it fled through the stained glass windows?

It emerged this weekend that the Church of England’s traditionalist clergy and lay people have been snubbed after a compromise ”“ that word again ”“ deal over women bishops was jettisoned.

Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals had hoped and earnestly prayed that the Church would agree to appoint male bishops to oversee them. But it has now become sadly, possibly even tragically, clear that a body looking at the females in mitres proposals ”“ the Revision Committee of the General Synod, the Church’s parliament ”“ has failed to back the idea.

Read it all.

As over 9,000 ex-service personnel and civilians marched past the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, two Anglican bishops were questioning the Government’s policy in Afghanistan.

On the Wednesday before, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Rt Rev Peter Price, asked Baron William Brett in the House of Lords if he agreed “that the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism strategies have resulted in serious civilian casualties and the alienation of the population, producing angry recruits for terrorism, and that together with the Americans we should now, with development, using our military resources, provide security exclusively to protect the strategic rebuilding of the country that is urgently needed?” Lord Brett replied: “I cannot agree with the first part of his question; I do not think there is evidence that the vast majority of Afghans are alienated by what the United Kingdom and its allies seek to do. There is broad support.”

The rationale behind the campaign was further undermined by the Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill, in his Remembrance Sunday sermon in Stoke Minster. The Bishop questioned whether the values the UK had sent its troops to uphold in Afghanistan were in fact valued domestically.

Bishop Gledhill said: “We are throwing our soldiers at a nation where the structures are endemically corrupt. We are trying to train up police in a society which is divided and where terrorism reigns. That is a difficult task for our troops and we salute them….”

Read it all.

After much discussion, the members of the Committee were unable to identify a basis for specifying particular functions for vesting which commanded sufficient support both from those in favour of the ordination of women as bishops and those unable to support that development. As a result all of the proposals for vesting particular functions by statute were defeated.

The effect of the Committee’s decision is therefore that such arrangements as are made for those unable to receive the episcopal ministry of women will need to be by way of delegation from the diocesan bishop rather than vesting.

Read it all noting especially the Q and A.

The committee’s abandonment of this concession means that male bishops overseeing traditionalists would, in some cases, only be able to operate at the behest of women bishops.

BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said that as things stand, the development seems likely to encourage more traditionalists to convert to Catholicism.

Read it all.

The committee has since been unable to agree on any compromise deal and will instead recommend to the General Synod, that the Church should proceed with appointing women bishops on the same terms as their male counterparts.

Although individual bishops could still make special provision for traditional clergy there will be no guarantee that their wishes will be catered for.

The decision could shatter Dr Rowan Williams’ hopes of preserving the unity of the church.

Following the Pope’s offer to disaffected Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism, traditionalists had said that they would wait for the Church of England to finalise plans over women bishops before making up their minds.

Fr David Houlding, a member of the Archbishops’ council and a leading traditionalist, said many would now leave.

Read it all.

Surprising aspects of the document include the provision that married former Anglican bishops can serve as the ordinary, or head of an ordinariate, take part in bishops’ conference meetings and be able to keep the episcopal insignia – for example, their crosier and mitre. Former Anglican clergymen entering the Catholic priesthood in the ordinariate would be allowed to take secular jobs, providing them with a means of supporting themselves. Cardinal Levada said the provision “opens a new avenue for the promotion of Christian unity while, at the same time, granting legitimate diversity in the expression of our common faith”.

Speaking on the day the document was published, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, who is one of the Church of England’s “flying bishops” who minister to Anglicans who do not accept women priests, said that traditionalists have been given what they asked for “handsomely”. He said that any transition would be difficult and it was a time for prayer and discernment.

“If we’re open-hearted and imaginative enough to accept the offer and realise that it will be an untidy transition, but that the ministry is not about that, then the difficulties can be overcome,” he said.

Read the whole article.

The Revision Committee met for its third scheduled meeting yesterday (13 November) since 8 October (see earlier statement). It concluded a substantial exploration of ways in which the draft legislation could be amended to enable certain functions to be vested by statute in bishops who would provide oversight for those unable to receive the episcopal and/or priestly ministry of women.

After much discussion, the members of the Committee were unable to identify a basis for specifying particular functions for vesting which commanded sufficient support both from those in favour of the ordination of women as bishops and those unable to support that development. As a result all of the proposals for vesting particular functions by statute were defeated.

The effect of the Committee’s decision is therefore that such arrangements as are made for those unable to receive the episcopal ministry of women will need to be by way of delegation from the diocesan bishop rather than vesting.

Read it carefully and read it all.

But no priest or group of laity has the right to take church property with them when they change denominations, for a Diocese holds such property in trust for the mission and ministry of the Church of England to all the people of its parishes and this duty of care would continue.

I don’t myself see how a parish could legally “take” the parish church and other assets without specific statutory authority.In the case of the parish church, it would presumably mean a Scheme under the Pastoral Measure or specific legislation enacted for the purpose, and this could only be done with the goodwill of the Diocese.In the case of assets such as the church hall or other parish property, appropriation to another denomination would almost certainly be a breach of trust and would not be possible without the co-operation of the Diocesan Board of Finance as Custodian Trustees and probably also the involvement of the Charity Commission.Parsonage houses are, of course, governed by the Parsonages Measure and an Incumbent cannot alienate the parsonage without obtaining the authority required by law, again the Diocesan Board of Finance or the Church Commissioners.Of course, in the months and years ahead much of this might well be crawled over by lawyers on all sides, but the general principles seem to be clear….

Read it all.

Anglicans who have sought communion with Rome are giving a positive initial reaction to the apostolic constitution released today that outlines how their personal ordinariates will be established.

In a report posted today on the Messenger Journal, the Great Britain province of the Traditional Anglican Communion said they are “the first to accept” the Vatican initiative.

The vote was unanimous including mail-in votes from those not present, and took place before the constitution was even released, the report explained.

Read it all.

I am unaware of any clergy or lay people in the Diocese of St Albans who have decided to take up this offer of joining one of the ”˜Personal Ordinariates’ yet. Personally, I will feel sad if anyone decides to leave us. However, there has always been two-way traffic between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. I expect that we will still see a small but steady stream of Roman Catholics being received into the Church of England. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of people in St Albans Diocese will continue to worship and serve their communities as before and are preparing for enthusiastic and joyful celebrations of Advent and Christmas.

Read the whole statement.

From here:

I had thought the original notice from Rome was extremely generous. Today all the accompanying papers have been published and they are extremely impressive. I have been horrified that the Church of England while trying to accommodate us has consistently said we cannot have the jurisdiction and independent life that most of us feel we need to continue on our Christian pilgrimage.

What Rome has done is offer exactly what the Church of England has refused. Indeed it has offered the requests of Consecrated Women? with the completion of its ecumenical hopes. We all need now to ask the question ‘is this what we want?’ For some of us I suspect our bluff is called! This is both an exciting and dangerous time for Christianity in this country. Those who take up this offer will need to enter into negotiation with the Church of England about access to parish churches and many other matters. This situation must not be used to damage the Church of England but I do believe we have a valid claim on our own heritage in history.

The doctrinal standard demanded by Rome is the New Catechism which most of us use anyway. We would be allowed to use Anglican or Roman rites and our ordinaries would have jurisdiction. We will all need to meet and talk. I would hope that this could take place in collaboration with the PEVs and other Catholic bishops. It is not my style to give a expansive analysis of a document that I have only received today nor will I answer the question ‘What are you going to do?’ That is something we need to work out together.

Every Blessing,

–(The Rt. Rev.) John Broadhurst, Bishop of Fulham

A Catholic journalist has suggested that the name of the “personal ordinariate” in England and Wales may be linked to John Henry Newman, a famous former Anglican priest and theologian whose beatification is expected in 2010 when Pope Benedict XVI visits England. Other reactions have been very mixed: from many Anglicans of anger and from some atheists of protection and protest. Perhaps the atheists in England deep down are Protestant atheists?

The long term consequences of this announcement are difficult to see at the moment, but the achievements of the dialogical approach of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) need to be safeguarded. The profoundly reconciling legacy in Liverpool and England of the friendship between Bishop David Sheppard and Archbishop Derek Worlock needs remembering and developing.

It may well be that the number of Anglican Catholic bishops and other clergy in England who take this up is likely to be low, and the number of congregations in England will be even lower.

Read it all.

The Apostolic Constitution has been published. It is all that Catholic Anglicans hoped for and more.While it officially keeps the door closed on any relaxation of the norms on celibacy – former Catholic priests who became Anglicans, married or no, will not be permitted to join the new Ordinariates – it is clear from Article 11 that former Anglican bishops can become Catholic bishops in all but name, even where they are married. They will officially retain the status of presbyter, but will be allowed to be the Ordinary or head of the Ordinariate, will be allowed to be a member of the local Bishops’ Conference with the status of retired bishop and, significantly, will be allowed to ask permission from Rome to use the seal of episcopal office. This leaves the path clear for Bishop of Fulham Father John Broadhurst, married father of four, to head the new Ordinariate in Britain. Heady stuff indeed – and I mean that theologically and metaphorically.

This document is in essence a practical working out of the embracing spirituality expressed in Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est.

It shows once again a passionate man, this time one who is passionate for unity.

Read it all.