A task group of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council will propose June 14 that Council tell the Anglican Communion that no governing body other than General Convention can interpret Convention resolutions or agree to deny “future decisions by dioceses or General Convention.”

A draft of the statement, titled “The Episcopal Church’s Commitment to Common Life in Anglican Communion,” says it “strongly affirm[s] this Church’s desire to be in the fullest possible relationship with our Anglican sisters and brothers.”

The draft would have the Council decline to participate in a so-called Pastoral Scheme proposed by the Primates of the Anglican Communion for dealing with some disaffected Episcopal Church dioceses. In March the House of Bishops said the plan “would be injurious to The Episcopal Church” and urged the Council to decline to participate.

The draft of the statement was released to Council members and staff the afternoon of June 13 at the Council’s meeting in Parsippany, New Jersey. The draft, and three proposed accompanying resolutions, will be discussed by the entire Council June 14.

Read it all.

In 1851, French President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte seized dictatorial powers that eventually allowed him to become Emperor Napoleon III, the last monarch of France. His actions gave currency to the term coup d’ètat, literally “strike the state,” which has described political takeovers from that day to this.

The parallel phrase coup d’èglise (strike the church) has not made it into the common lexicon but may be the only way to accurately describe the lightning ascendancy of the primates of the Anglican Communion. From their first meeting in 1979 to their asserted role in the proposed Anglican Covenant, the group has moved from non-existence to centrality. This may or may not be what the Anglican Communion needs; it may or may not be what every devoted Anglican wants; it may or may not be the leading of the Holy Spirit; but we should all know that it is happening.

For most of its history the Anglican Communion lived with three basic facts of life: The members had a common root in the Church of England, a common focal point in the Archbishop of Canterbury, and common mission on a selective basis. A common doctrinal base was assumed but basically unexamined.

The idea of ecumenicity in the late 19th century led to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, which was as close as the Communion ever came to formal doctrinal expression. The Quadrilateral was so broad that it was said that when we speak neither the pope nor the premier of China can say for certain they are not Anglicans.

This hazy sense of communion lasted until the emergence of indigenous leaders in the post-colonial church brought pre-existing differences of perspective and orientation into clarity and conflict. These differences became an Anglican crisis when the American and Canadian provinces gave tangible expression to a faithfully developed, but to many intolerable, view of human sexuality. That crisis provided the platform for the primates’ move to power.

Did I miss something? Where is the reference to the 1988 or 1998 Lambeth meetings? Just thought I would ask. Read it all.

Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada, at their regular spring meeting, on April 19 chose four of their colleagues as candidates for the office of primate, or national archbishop: George Bruce of the Kingston, Ont.-based diocese of Ontario, Fred Hiltz of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Bruce Howe of the London-Ont.-based diocese of Huron and Victoria Matthews of Edmonton.

In a three-hour closed session, the 39 bishops voting began with a slate of eight nominees. They did not release the names of the other candidates and there were no additional names proposed from the floor, said Bishop Don Phillips of Winnipeg-based Rupert’s Land, secretary of the house of bishops. Voting went to 14 ballots, since under the rules of the election, no names were dropped from the ballot after each round. When a nominee received a majority of votes, or 20, he or she moved to the candidates’ list, in effect releasing those 20 votes to other candidates for the next round. Voting was fairly evenly spaced among the four finalists, with each taking about three or four ballots to attract a majority. Bishop Phillips declined to give the order in which the four candidates were chosen.

Bishop Bruce was present for the first half of the session, but had to leave at midday when he received news that his daughter-in-law, Margo, had died after a long battle with cancer.

After four names, the bishops voted to end the balloting. The new church leader is scheduled to be elected on June 22 by the 300 delegates at the triennial General Synod governing convention, which will meet in Winnipeg from June 19-25. The primate will be officially installed in office on June 25.

Read the whole article.

During the plenary session, [Katharine] Jefferts Schori and [Bonnie] Anderson reported on their activities since the March Council meeting.

Later in the afternoon, Nigerian Anglican Davis Mac-Iyalla, founder of his country’s only gay-rights organization, Changing Attitude Nigeria, met with Council’s International Concerns (INC) and National Concerns (NAC) committees.

During her remarks to the plenary session, Jefferts Schori told Council that recently she has been contemplating how language can be used to allow for “true conversation” — what she called “non-violent language” — or how “violent language” is used instead for “leaping to judgment.”

The church, Jefferts Schori said, must consider how it interacts with the world. “How do we keep the space open so that we can truly learn from each other?” she asked.

Jefferts Schori also outlined her travel schedule and the various groups and people with whom she has met. Most recently she spent time with Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams while she was in Washington D.C. last week to testify on global warming before a U.S. Senate committee hearing. Williams is spending much of a three-month sabbatical at Georgetown University.

Anderson concentrated her report to Council on her experience of the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference in South Africa in March and her subsequent travel to Livingstone, Zambia to participate in the rollout of an Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) anti-malaria project.

The Episcopal Church’s Chief Operating Officer Linda Watt also gave Council an overview of what she called “the richness of the work” done at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City. She urged Council members to visit the church’s website to access the websites of individual mission and ministry website “where you can really feel the pulse of the work we are doing directly.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

When the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church convenes June 11-14 in Parsippany, New Jersey, its members will spend time reflecting on the past, present and future shape of the Church and of the Anglican Communion, as well as considering issues of ministry and governance.

The Church’s governing body between General Conventions will, as part of its agenda, look to the past to hear a report about the effort to gather information about how the Episcopal Church may have benefited from slavery.

The Council will look to the present and the future as it discusses how the Church might reach out to Episcopalians in a small number of dioceses and parishes where the leadership is disaffected with the wider Church.

Council will consider a report and resolutions in response to portions of the communiqué issued by the Anglican Primates at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; get a summary of responses to its invitation for Episcopalians to discuss the proposed Anglican Covenant; and will hear about the experience of one gay Anglican in Nigeria.

“I am sure that a number of international concerns will be the subject of our conversation and deliberation,” said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. “Among them, Anglican Communion issues, of mission including the Towards Effective Anglican Mission meeting and matters of peace and justice such as our Millennium Development Goal efforts. We’ll talk about how we can grow our partnerships around the Communion; as well as relationships with our covenant partners such as Brazil, Mexico and Philippines.

“The current conflict around the draft Anglican Covenant and the process for its consideration, as well as the Lambeth Conference and the House of Bishops’ response to the Primates’ Communiqué, will be discussed. We will also include in that discussion the conflict caused by incursion into the Episcopal Church from other members of the Anglican Communion.”

“We will consider domestic issues including the federal Farm Bill and our concern about domestic poverty, as well as matters of internal governance,” she continued.

Read it all.

Given this situation, we would make the following points and raise the following questions:

1. ACI has defended not only a collaborative understanding of the Instruments of Unity, but their integrity as well. The failure of the ABC publicly to state that the Dar es Salaam Communiqué is alive and well has been injurious to our common life. It has also been intimated in certain quarters that the adjudication of the Communiqué will be undertaken by a Joint Steering Committee of the Primates and the ACC. We trust that this rumor is mistaken. The Primates have worked hard and declared their intention, and their recommendations and requests are fully within their remit as an Instrument with enhanced responsibility, whose present character was requested by other Instruments of Communion. Lacking any clear understanding of the precise fate of the Communiqué has left the field open for manipulation and the multiplication of other initiatives, borne of fear, concern, power balancing and so on.

2. ACI has sought to work with the Windsor Report, the Covenant, and within the US, the Windsor Bishops. One can watch with curiosity and concern the proliferating of various groups within the conservative ranks, most recently, a Common Cause College of Bishops (as proposed), CANA, and others. The Anglican Communion Network would appear to have split into those bishops now headed toward the Common Cause College, and those who wish to continue on the Windsor path. But to the degree that the Windsor Bishops have no clarity about the future of the Primates’ Tanzanian Communiqué, and hence a comprehensive, ordered response to their Communion life in troubled times, they will collapse altogether. Indeed, one wonders what role they might be expected to exercise in the light of such unclarity.

3. It is our understanding that the recent issuing of Lambeth invitations was done in the light of organizational concerns and the timing of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s leave. The ways in which the Archbishop has reserved to himself all manner of options, discernment, and counsel regarding the ultimate character of invitations–which is his right to do–means that speculation about the character of the conference is bound to be only that. Still, it is speculation capable of generating unease and reaction that is not always constructive.

Read it all.

A palpable sense of apprehension was in the air as the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church gathered at Camp Allen in Texas on 16 March 2007, for their five-day spring meeting. Everyone was in a dither about the recently issued Communique from the Dar es Salaam meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, calling for an ‘unequivocal’ response from the American bishops to the Windsor Report requests for a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions and the consecration of any bishop living in a same-sex partnership. The bishops have to give an answer by 30 September 2007.

Gracious conversation

In the days leading up to the meeting, all the bishops had been peppered by emails and letters from the lesbi-gay lobby group to ‘just say no!’ to this interference in our internal affairs. The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, preparing to preside at her first meeting of the HOB, wrote to all the bishops to assure them that no decisions were to be made on the Communique at this meeting and to publicize that fact to others. This was to be a time for gracious conversation and careful listening to one another. Decisions were to be put off until the September meeting of the House in order to comply with the Primates’ deadline.

However, the liberals were not buying that approach and were determined to take a stand now, perhaps not on the issue of the requested moratoria, which could wait until September, but certainly on the proposed Pastoral Scheme that would undermine the canonical integrity of TEC. A small group of bishops had been discussing a paper that they would spring on the meeting near its end and had arrived at Camp Allen with draft copies in hand. Their urgency was driven by a fear that the Archbishop of Canterbury was moving too quickly in the formation of the Pastoral Council and the selection by Windsor Bishops of a Primatial Vicar who would minister to those congregations and dioceses who were alienated from their church by recent actions of the General Convention.

So after much talk and prayer, as the final day approached, a business session was called and the bishops moved into the legislative mode, adopting two ‘Mind of the House’ resolutions, ‘A Communication to The Episcopal Church,’ and a pastoral letter entitled ‘A Message to God’s People.’

Two resolutions

The first resolution, while affirming the desire for TEC to remain a full member of the Anglican Communion, called the proposed Pastoral Scheme ‘injurious to The Episcopal Church’ and urged the Executive Council to ‘decline to participate in it.’ Never mind that the Communique never asked the Executive Council to do anything about the Pastoral Scheme and that the Presiding Bishop had declared her support of such an arrangement at the Primates’ Meeting; the majority of the bishops felt the need to act quickly and decisively to protect ‘our own polity and canons.’

The second resolution, proposed by Central Florida Bishop John Howe, a member of the Anglican Communion Network, again affirmed a ‘passionate desire to remain in full constituent membership’ in the Anglican Communion, underscored that ‘we are unable to accept the proposed Pastoral Scheme,’ and went on to cite ‘an urgent need’ for the HOB ‘to meet face to face’ with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates’ Standing Committee ‘at the earliest possible opportunity’ The resolution even went on to give the assurance that such a meeting would be ‘at our expense for three days of prayer and conversation regarding these important matters’ But, one might ask, why the need for such an additional meeting? Do they expect the ABC and Standing Committee to repudiate the requests for moratoria made by the Windsor Report and reaffirmed by the Primates? Is it an opportunity to explain once again the unique polity of TEC that all orders – bishops, priests and laity – have to be involved in making policy decisions for this church? Is it just an effort to delay the inevitable decision to walk apart? The resolution was adopted without dissent.

Then it was time to perfect the ‘Message to God’s People,’ which some bishops had been working on for days in advance of arriving at Camp Allen ‘for conversation.’ After carefully pointing out the international make up of TEC – ‘we represent fifteen sovereign nations, the fifty United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, and Micronesia’ – the statement trumpets the ‘ health and vitality of our Church.’ Mention is made of the Millennium Development Goals (but of course!), the work of the Covenant Drafting Committee, the war in Iraq, and the progress of the Bishop’s Task Force on Property Disputes. Then comes the heart of the matter: the Communique from the Primates.

Millennium development goals

In a rather self-serving and defensive fashion, the statement goes on to say (once again!) that though we really want to remain in the Anglican Communion, we must do so on our own terms. Down with the Pastoral Scheme, down with the appointment of a Primatial Vicar and Pastoral Council, down with foreign interference in the life of TEC! The Primates are chastised for the Communique’s failure to draw attention to ‘the pressing issues of violence against gay and lesbian people around the world, and the criminalization of homosexual behavior in many nations of the world.’ The statement concludes with the promise of ‘a teaching guide’ that will be provided for the study of the Communique and the proposed Covenant. We can hardly wait!

As for the last document, the pastoral letter – it contains more of the same. You really must read it to believe it! It is the most robust defence of our rights and privileges as American Episcopalians that I have seen to this date! The Windsor Bishops and the Anglican Communion Network have yet to make a specific response to the Camp Allen decisions and declarations. And as for the HOB of TEC, they shall meet again in the fall for more graceful conversation and careful listening.’ As we say in Texas: ‘Well, bless their hearts!’

–(The Rt. Rev.) Jack Iker is Bishop of Fort Worth; this article appears in the May 2007 issue of New Directions Magazine

Readers are encouraged to read through much related material to the House of Bishops study document at this (relatively new) website–KSH.

(ENS)

Mary Frances Schjonberg

The Theology Committee of the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops on June 1 released a study document aimed at helping the bishops respond to the requests made to them by the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

The 15-page “Communion Matters: A Study Document for the Episcopal Church” is available online. A color PDF version of the document is available here. A black-and-white PDF version is here.

Theology Committee chair and Alabama Bishop Henry Parsley told Episcopal News Service that the report is meant for bishops to use in conversation with the people of their dioceses in the three and a half months between now and the mid-September meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans. Rather than call for responses from individual Episcopalians, Parsley said the committee will in late August and early September gather input from bishops on the result of their conversations in their dioceses.

He said the committee hopes that Episcopalians will “read, mark, inwardly digest and then come talk” about the document with their bishop.

“Every diocese will have to do that in their own way,” he said. “We didn’t want it to be an individual thing. We wanted it to be a diocesan, corporate process overseen by the bishop.”

Parsley said the corporate nature of the conversations is important, given the nature of the requests made by the Primates at the end of their February gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania via a communiqué.

“The Anglican tradition is always that bishops are in the midst of the people of God and, when thinking about important matters, need to take counsel with the deacons, priests and laypersons in order to be well-informed and to listen to the Church,” he said. “We felt that since the communiqué addresses the request to the House of Bishops in response to resolutions of General Convention, we couldn’t just act unilaterally. We needed to take counsel with the people of the Church in responding to the communiqué.”

He added that bishops need to exercise their “unique role as chief pastors and teachers … but we exercise it best when we are in conversation with — in counsel with — the Church in our dioceses.”

“Communion Matters” begins with a preface in which the committee writes that it offers the document “as a contribution to the discernment of this church as we seek the mind of Christ and endeavor to be faithful to our calling as members of the Anglican family in the world.”

It includes three chapters of information, a set of questions for reflection and resources for more background.

The preface says that the guide aims to be a summary, not an exhaustive history.

“Constraints of space and concerns about maintaining easy readability prevent us from recounting all the important details of the conversation taking place in our church and Communion,” the committee writes. “We hope that we have faithfully described the essentials.”

Parsley reiterated the preface’s hope. “We wanted this to be readable, brief and accessible to all of our people,” he said. “In that way, it’s a little simpler than some people might want, but we want it to be read and stimulate conversation.”

The chapter on “Relationships within the Anglican Communion” says that the Communion matters because “in this fellowship all give and receive many gifts,” “it enables us to be disciples in a global context,” “we have sought it for many years,” and “the maintenance of mutuality and trust with the Communion effects future mission opportunities.”

The next chapter, titled “Our Special Charism as Anglican Christians,” says that Anglicans have always valued the via media — “the middle way between polarities” — as a “faithful theological method.”

The chapter describes the via media as an approach that “acknowledges paradox and believes even apparent opposites may be reconciled or transcended.”

“Moreover, many within our church believe this is a good thing and a major charism (gift),” the chapter says. “In our own day, we especially need to preserve this special Anglican charism, not only for our own Communion but for all Christians.”

The third chapter sets the Dar es Salaam communiqué in the context of the Communion’s on-going debate about human sexuality, noting that “because the Communion has no central constitution and no form of synod or council beyond that of each province, issues of authority and conciliarity can present acute challenges for the maintenance of communion.”

The chapter references the 1998 Lambeth Conference debate and the previous objections by the Primates Meeting, traces the Windsor Report process, outlines the Episcopal Church’s response to the Report, summarizes how the Primates Meeting came to be and summarizes the pertinent parts of the communiqué and the House of Bishops’ statements about it to date.

The House of Bishops has already responded to a portion of the communiqué. In three “Mind of the House” resolutions passed during their March meeting, the bishops said, in part, that the Primates’ proposed “pastoral scheme” for dealing with disaffected Episcopal Church dioceses “would be injurious to The Episcopal Church.” The bishops urged that the Executive Council “decline to participate in it.”

The communiqué gave the bishops of the Episcopal Church until September 30 to “make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention” and “confirm that the passing of Resolution B033 of the 75th General Convention means that a candidate for episcopal orders living in a same-sex union shall not receive the necessary consent; unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion.”

The third chapter states that these two requests “raise significant issues about the role of the primates in the Anglican Communion, Anglican ecclesiology, and the role of the House of Bishops in the Episcopal Church,” including:

“Are such requests appropriately addressed by the bishops as chief pastors and teachers, or more representatively by the General Convention?”
“How best may theological and mission development take place in churches which are ”˜autonomous in communion’?” and
“How can the Communion appropriately consult about important matters such as these without a centralization of authority that is unknown to Anglicanism?”
The three chapters are followed by a series of eight questions for reflection with some background on each question, and then a page of online resources for more background. When viewed on a computer in its PDF form, the clickable links on the resources page send readers to electronic versions of the documents.

“As bishops we are charged in ordination to guard the faith and unity of the Church. Being charged with this task does not mean it falls to us alone,” the document concludes. “This study document is written to allow us to hear and receive the response of the whole of this province so that together we might respond faithfully as a constituent member of this great Communion.”

In addition to Parsley, the members of the Theology Committee are David Alvarez of Puerto Rico; Joe Burnett of Nebraska; Robert W. Ihloff, recently retired of Maryland; Carolyn T. Irish of Utah; Paul V. Marshall of Bethlehem; Steven A. Miller of Milwaukee and Jeffrey Steenson of Rio Grande.

The Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas, an Executive Council member and professor at Episcopal Divinity School, is the committee’s consulting theologian. Douglas also worked as a liaison between the Theology Committee and a subcommittee of the Executive Council’s International Concerns Committee (INC), which released a six-page study guide to the draft version of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

The covenant guide calls for congregations and individuals to submit responses by June 4. Responses will be used in the creation of a response by the Executive Council at its October meeting in Detroit, Michigan.

Prior to that, at the Council’s June meeting in Parsippany, New Jersey, INC will propose that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson appoint a Covenant Review Group to follow the covenant-development process, enable comments from the wider Episcopal Church and provide comments on behalf of the church to the Communion’s Covenant Design Group.

A senior Anglican conservative witheringly described the state of the worldwide Church as “a mess” and “awful” yesterday as the Archbishop of Canterbury prepared to take a three-month break.

The criticism will come as a blow to Dr Rowan Williams, who last week attempted to placate the Church’s conservative wing by snubbing the Church’s first openly gay bishop.

Dr Williams announced that Bishop Gene Robinson will not be invited to next year’s Lambeth Conference, the 10-yearly gathering of all the Church’s 850-plus bishops in Canterbury.

But conservative leaders remain unimpressed. At least a handful of them – who represent a huge swathe of the 70-million strong Church – are still proposing to boycott the conference.

The Primate of the Southern Cone in South America, Archbishop Gregory Venables, told The Daily Telegraph: “It is a mess. Unless there is a major shift there are going to be significant absences from Lambeth.”

The conservative “Global South” primates, who are mostly from Africa and Asia, are furious because they believe Dr Williams has been unduly lenient with the liberal leadership of the American branch of Anglicanism.

Many of them had expected that all the liberal American bishops would be excluded from the Lambeth Conference unless they reversed their unilateral pro-gay agenda.

The US bishops were given until September 30 by the Anglican primates to declare a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops and same-sex blessings and to approve a “parallel” Church scheme for American conservatives.

So far the Americans have rejected the scheme and seem unlikely to fulfil the other requests. Dr Williams, who begins his extended leave on Friday, appeared to offer them unconditional invitations to the Lambeth Conference last week.

Read it all.

By George Conger

THE EPISCOPAL Church has mishandled the debate on human sexuality by misleading the Anglican Communion about its intentions to regularise gay bishops and blessings, the Primate of the West Indies said on May 15. By placing autonomy above unity it has brought the Anglican Communion to the brink of collapse, Archbishop Drexel Gomez told the clergy of Central Florida. Archbishop Gomez criticised the leadership of the Episcopal Church for not being entirely straight forward with the Communion. “You just cannot have collegiality,” he explained, “if when you meet with your colleagues you don’t share.”

He also chided the African-led missionary jurisdictions, the AMiA and CANA, operating in the United States, saying they were an unfortunate “anomaly.” It was “most unfortunate” that the Episcopal Church had hid its intentions to regularise gay bishops and blessings, Archbishop Gomez said, as it had not seen “fit to share with the rest of the Anglican Communion what it intended on doing.” During the 2003 Primates’ Meeting in Gramado, Brazil “we had a long discussion on this business of [gay] blessings and samesex unions,” he said. But at “no time during the meeting, did [US Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold] even indicate that a situation was developing in the Episcopal Church that would lead to the consecration of Gene Robinson.” “It is not good enough as Frank [Griswold] had said that The Episcopal Church has been wrestling with this issue for 30 years and the Spirit has led them to this decision. We were unaware of the problem. It must be a shared discernment if we belong to the body,” Archbishop Gomez said. ACC-13 in Nottingham was the “first time any presentation had been made by The Episcopal Church” on these issues, he argued.

At the 2003 emergency Primates’ Meeting at Lambeth Palace, “We said unanimously, including Frank Griswold, if The Episcopal Church were to proceed with the consecration of Gene Robinson that it would tear the fabric of the Communion. And yet it proceeded and the fabric has been torn,” he said. The consecration of Gene Robinson was “the first time in the history of Christendom that someone has been made a bishop who could not function as a bishop,” Archbishop Gomez argued. “Theologically I do not consider him to be a bishop,” he said. Bishop Robinson’s episcopal ordination was an example of Augustine’s argument, Archbishop Gomez stated that “a sacrament could be valid but non efficacious.” He “has been sacramentally ordained, validly ordained as a bishop, but he cannot function as a bishop in most of the Anglican Communion.”

Archbishop Gomez stated he was also “very concerned” about the formation of rival Anglican jurisdictions in the United States under the sponsorship of overseas primates. These “new groupings are anomalous in Anglicanism” he told Central Florida, adding “I tried hard at the last Primates’ Meeting to find an answer to that” difficulty, which “complicates the situation.” One of the triumphs of the Tanzania Primates’ Meeting, he said, had been the agreement made by the onterventionist primates to turn over their US jurisdictions to an international pastoral council. “We got them to the point where they would stop. This was not easy to achieve,” he said. “I thought the House of Bishops would jump at the opportunity” to end foreign interventions, but they “wouldn’t look at it.” The rejection of the pastoral council by the House of Bishops now makes it “twice as difficult to get this back on the table,” Archbishop Gomez said. He also stated the Dar es Salaam Communiqué was the first statement by the Primates where each was asked to give their personal assent.

At prior meetings “we worked by consensus in our decisions,” but Archbishop Williams “felt that the decision was so important, so critical” that all should be polled for their views. “Individually [Archbishop Williams] went around and individually every person said yes [to the Communiqué]. [Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori] said yes, but said it would be a difficult sell, but she would try.” The question put to the Presiding Bishop was whether she accepted the communiqué, “and Katharine agreed to the proposal.” Archbishop Gomez did not expect a decisive response from the House of Bishops to the September 30 deadline for compliance to the Primates’ Communiqué. “On the basis of past actions, certainly over the past 10 years, I would presume that the Episcopal Church would seek someway of fudging it. And that would be a consistent pattern,” he stated. He told the gathering that he had suggested a September 30 deadline for a response from the House of Bishops. “The intention was to give them two full meetings” before an answer was due, although Archbishop Williams had pressed for more time. The Episcopal Church “will have to make a decision” whether it will remain part of the Anglican Communion. “The official Church speaking through its General Convention places autonomy over its mission. That is the reality we have to face in the Communion,” Archbishop Gomez said.

–This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper, May 25 2007 edition, page 7

From ENS:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent a short e-mail message to the House of Bishops urging “a calm approach to today’s announcement regarding 2008 Lambeth Conference invitations, a subject on which I plan to make no formal statement at this time. It is possible that aspects of this matter may change in the next 14 months, and the House of Bishops’ September meeting offers us a forum for further discussion.”

Dear All,

In response to requests for comments on the Lambeth Conference invitations, Archbishop Peter Akinola reaffirms that the Church of Nigeria is committed to the CAPA commissioned report “The Road to Lambeth”
(link here for Road to Lambeth doc)

Since only the first set of invitations had been sent, it is premature to conclude who will be present or absent at the conference. However, the withholding of invitation to a Nigerian bishop, elected and consecrated by other Nigerian bishops will be viewed as withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria.

The Lord bless you as you remain in Christ

The Venerable AkinTunde Popoola
Director of Communications
Primate’s Office, 24 Douala Str., Wuse Zone 5, P.O. Box 212 ADCP, Abuja,
F.C.T., Nigeria.

(ACNS)

The first invitations for the 2008 Lambeth Conference, to be held in Canterbury next summer, are being sent out today by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. The gathering, which is set to be the largest Lambeth Conference in the history of the Anglican Communion, brings together bishops from the Churches in the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion together with ecumenical and other invited guests.

The 2008 Conference is intended to comprise nearly three weeks of shared retreat, common worship, study and discussion. It differs from previous gatherings in that the bishops will begin the conference with a period of retreat and reflection. It is planned that much of this retreat time will be held in and around Canterbury Cathedral.

The first set of invitations are being sent today to over 800 bishops of the provinces of the Anglican Communion. In his letter of invitation the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, pays tribute to the Conference Design Group whose members, led by the Archbishop of Melanesia, have, with his full support, proposed a programme with an emphasis on fellowship, study, prayer, the sharing of experience and discussion, all aimed at equipping bishops for their distinctive apostolic ministry:

“Their vision and their advice has been an inspiration at every stage so far. I am hugely excited by the possibilities the programme offers for a new and more effective style of meeting and learning, and for greater participation, which will help us grow together locally and internationally. ”¦ it will also be an opportunity for all of us to strengthen our commitment to God’s mission and to our common life as a Communion. In connection with this latter point, we shall be devoting some time to thinking about the proposals for an Anglican Covenant, and about other ways in which we can deepen our sense of a common calling for us as a coherent and effective global Church family.”

“The Conference is a place where experience of our living out of God’s mission can be shared. It is a place where we may be renewed for effective ministry. And it is a place where we can try and get more clarity about the limits of our diversity and the means of deepening our Communion, so we can speak together with conviction and clarity to the world. It is an occasion in which the Archbishop of Canterbury exercises his privilege of calling his colleagues together, not to legislate but to discover and define something more about our common identity through prayer, listening to God’s Word and shared reflection. It is an occasion to rediscover the reality of the Church itself as a worldwide community united by the call and grace of Christ.”

Mindful of the speculation that has surrounded the issuing of invitations to the Conference Dr Williams recalls that invitations are issued on a personal basis by the Archbishop of Canterbury and that “the Lambeth Conference has no ”˜constitution’ or formal powers; it is not a formal Synod or Council of the Communion”, and that invitation to the Conference has never been seen as “a certificate of doctrinal orthodoxy”. Nevertheless Dr Williams recognises in his letter that under very exceptional circumstances an invitation may be withheld or withdrawn. Under this provision, there are a small number of bishops to whom invitations are not at this stage being extended whilst Dr Williams takes further advice.

Other invitations ”“ to ecumenical representatives and other invited guests ”“ will be sent out in due course. Bishops’ spouses are being invited to a parallel conference; invitations for this will be sent later in the year by Mrs Jane Williams, who is the host.

The text of the Archbishop’s invitation is below:

”˜Dear Bishop,

I am delighted to invite you to the Lambeth Conference of 2008 and I very much look forward to our gathering together as bishops of the Anglican Communion.
The dates of the Conference are 16 July-4 August 2008 and I trust you will already have heard something of the vision for the Conference as it has been unfolding. It will focus on our equipping as bishops for leadership in mission and teaching, and it will also be an opportunity for all of us to strengthen our commitment to God’s mission and to our common life as a Communion. In connection with this latter point, we shall be devoting some time to thinking about the proposals for an Anglican Covenant, and about other ways in which we can deepen our sense of a common calling for us as interdependent members of the body of Christ.

This will be my third Lambeth Conference and I am very confident of the quality of the programme being developed for it. I want to offer my warm public thanks to all those from across the world who have worked so hard at planning this ”“ especially the devoted Design Group under the Archbishop of Melanesia, those who attended the St Augustine’s Seminar last year, and our Conference Manager, Sue Parks. Their vision and their advice has been an inspiration at every stage so far. I am hugely excited by the possibilities the programme offers for a new and more effective style of meeting and learning, and for greater participation, which will help us grow together locally and internationally.

Because there has been quite a bit of speculation about invitations and the conditions that might be attached to them, I want to set out briefly what I think the Conference is and is not.

The Conference is a place where our experience of living out God’s mission can be shared. It is a place where we may be renewed for effective ministry. And it is a place where we can try and get more clarity about the limits of our diversity and the means of deepening our Communion, so we can speak together with conviction and clarity to the world. It is an occasion when the Archbishop of Canterbury exercises his privilege of calling his colleagues together, not to legislate but to discover and define something more about our common identity through prayer, listening to God’s Word and shared reflection. It is an occasion to rediscover the reality of the Church itself as a worldwide community united by the call and grace of Christ.

But the Lambeth Conference has no ”˜constitution’ or formal powers; it is not a formal Synod or Council of the bishops of the Communion, which would require us to be absolutely clear about the standing of all the participants. An invitation to participate in the Conference has not in the past been a certificate of doctrinal orthodoxy. Coming to the Lambeth Conference does not commit you to accepting the position of others as necessarily a legitimate expression of Anglican doctrine and discipline, or to any action that would compromise your conscience or the integrity of your local church.
At a time when our common identity seems less clear that it once did, the temptation is to move further away from each other into those circles where we only related to those who completely agree with us. But the depth and seriousness of the issues that face us require us to discuss as fully and freely as we can, and no other forum offers the same opportunities for all to hear and consider, in the context of a common waiting on the Holy Spirit.

I have said, and repeat here, that coming to the Conference does not commit you to accepting every position held by other bishops as equally legitimate or true. But I hope it does commit us all to striving together for a more effective and coherent worldwide body, working for God’s glory and Christ’s Kingdom. The Instruments of Communion have offered for this purpose a set of resources and processes, focused on the Windsor Report and the Covenant proposals. My hope is that as we gather we can trust that your acceptance of the invitation carries a willingness to work with these tools to shape our future. I urge you all most strongly to strive during the intervening period to strengthen confidence and understanding between our provinces and not to undermine it.
At this point, and with the recommendations of the Windsor Report particularly in mind, I have to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion. Indeed there are currently one or two cases on which I am seeking further advice. I do not say this lightly, but I believe that we need to know as we meet that each participant recognises and honours the task set before us and that there is an adequate level of mutual trust between us about this. Such trust is a great deal harder to sustain if there are some involved who are generally seen as fundamentally compromising the efforts towards a credible and cohesive resolution.

I look forward with enthusiasm to the Conference and hope you will be able to attend, or your successor in the event that you retire in the meantime. My wife Jane will be writing with an invitation to the Spouses Conference which will run in parallel to the Lambeth Conference. Further communication to bishops will follow soon from the Lambeth Conference Office, including details of the costs and a reply slip on which you can respond formally to this invitation. It would be a great help if these replies were received by 31 July 2007. In the meantime, should you have any queries about the Lambeth Conference itself, or if you will be retiring before the Conference, please contact the Lambeth Conference Manager at invitations@lambethconference.org or consult the Lambeth Conference website www.lambethconference.org.

I trust you and your diocese will join with me in praying for God’s gracious blessing of our time together.

Yours in Christ,

Rowan CANTUAR