Friday Update: the Communique from the Gathering may be read here
Today the Primates agreed how they would walk together in the grace and love of Christ. This agreement acknowledges the significant distance that remains but confirms their unanimous commitment to walk together.

The Primates regret that it appears that this document has been leaked in advance of their communiqué tomorrow. In order to avoid speculation the document is being released in full. This agreement demonstrates the commitment of all the Primates to continue the life of the Communion with neither victor nor vanquished.

Questions and further comments will be responded to at a press conference tomorrow at 1500.

The full text is as follows:

1. We gathered as Anglican Primates to pray and consider how we may preserve our unity in Christ given the ongoing deep differences that exist among us concerning our understanding of marriage.
2. Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage. Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation.

3. All of us acknowledge that these developments have caused further deep pain throughout our Communion.

4. The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.

5. In keeping with the consistent position of previous Primates’ meetings such unilateral actions on a matter of doctrine without Catholic unity is considered by many of us as a departure from the mutual accountability and interdependence implied through being in relationship with each other in the Anglican Communion.

6. Such actions further impair our communion and create a deeper mistrust between us. This results in significant distance between us and places huge strains on the functioning of the Instruments of Communion and the ways in which we express our historic and ongoing relationships.

7. It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.

8. We have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a Task Group to maintain conversation among ourselves with the intention of restoration of relationship, the rebuilding of mutual trust, healing the legacy of hurt, recognising the extent of our commonality and exploring our deep differences, ensuring they are held between us in the love and grace of Christ.

The primates of the Anglican Communion have suspended the Episcopal Church from full participation in the life and work of the Anglican Communion. On 14 January 2016 a motion was presented to the gathering of archbishops and moderators gathered in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral that called for the Episcopal Church to be suspended for a period of three years.

A copy of the resolution seen by Anglican Ink calls for the Episcopal Church to lose its “vote” in meetings of pan-Anglican institutions and assemblies, but preserves its “voice”, demoting the church to observer status..

The motion asks that representatives of the Episcopal Church not be permitted to represent the Communion in interfaith and ecumenical bodies or dialogue commissions, nor serve on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council, nor vote at meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council — whose next meeting is this summer in Lusaka. Unlike the recommendations of the Windsor Report, which called for the “voluntary withdrawal” of the Episcopal Church from the life of the Communion, today’s vote directs the archbishop to discipline the American church.

Read it all.

The Anglican Communion is our spiritual home and the GAFCON Primates traveled to England in the hope that godly faith and order could be restored through renewed obedience to the Bible.

We are pleased that Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America has played a full part in the Canterbury meeting of Primates and that sanctions have been applied to the Episcopal Church of the United States, (TEC) recognising the need for mutual accountability on matters of doctrine within the family of the Communion.
However, this action must not be seen as an end, but as a beginning. There is much that causes us concern, especially the failure to recognise the fact that the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) has also rejected the collegial mind of the Communion by unilaterally permitting the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of those in active homosexual relationships. We fear that other provinces will do the same.

Since the beginning of the crisis in the Communion brought about by the actions of both TEC and the ACoC, the Anglican instruments of unity have been unable to guard biblical truth and restore godly order. There must therefore be doubt about the effectiveness of the sanctions that have been agreed.

In particular, it must be recognised that the continuing brokenness of the Communion is not the result simply of failed relationships, but is caused by the persistent rejection of biblical and apostolic faith as set out in Lambeth Resolution 1.10. We are therefore disappointed that the Primates’ statement makes no reference to the need for repentance.

The need for the GAFCON movement is being recognised by an ever increasing number of people and we are encouraged in our conviction that God has called us to work for an Anglican Communion which is a truly global family of Churches. We long to see a united, confident and courageous witness to God who by the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ has given us an unshakeable hope and assures us of his unfailing love.

— Released by GAFCON chairman The Most Rev. Dr. Eliud Wabukala and the GAFCON General Secretary, The Most Rev. Dr. Peter Jensen

Take the time to watch and listen to it all.

On the second day of the gathering, I moved a resolution that asked the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada to voluntarily withdraw from the meeting and other Anglican Communion activities until they repented of their decisions that have torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level. They would not agree to this request nor did it appear that the Archbishop of Canterbury and his facilitators would ensure that this matter be substantively addressed in a timely manner.

Sadly, after two long days of discussions, I was concerned that the process set up for this meeting would not permit us to address the unfinished business from the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam.

In accordance with the resolution of our Provincial Assembly, it was, therefore, necessary for me to withdraw from the meeting, which I did at the end of the second day. It seemed that I was being manipulated into participating in a long meeting with the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada without the necessary discipline being upheld. My conscience is at peace.

Read it all.

More to follow – limits to ecumenical involvement for the Episcopal Church. No restriction imposed on Anglican Church of Canada.

Early information being heard. Confirmation of details to follow when available.

Update:There is an important clue here in those who know how to read between the lines..

.@anglicanink Acting within the love&grace of Jesus Not about sanctions but consequences in context of unanimous commitment to walk together

— Arun Arora (@RevArun) January 14, 2016

IMPORTANT UPDATE
There may already be a ban on representatives of TEC particpating in Anglican Communion ecumenical activities – which we do not recollect having been rescinded.

FURTHER IMPORTANT UPDATE
The Archbishop of Canterbury in his May 2010 Pentecost Letter imposed an exclusion on the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church from serving on Anglican Communion Ecumenical Dialogues:

I am therefore proposing that, while these tensions remain unresolved, members of such provinces ”“ provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) ”“ should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged. I am further proposing that members of such provinces serving on IASCUFO should for the time being have the status only of consultants rather than full members. This is simply to confirm what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice. It does not alter what has been said earlier by the Primates’ Meeting about the nature of the moratoria: the request for restraint does not necessarily imply that the issues involved are of equal weight but recognises that they are ”˜central factors placing strains on our common life’, in the words of the Primates in 2007. Particular provinces will be contacted about the outworking of this in the near future.

However, the ACO ignored the ban in relation to Toronto, Canada and
The Episcopal Church

JUSTIN WELBY: It is a sense of, hang on; you are telling us whom and what we should be. A senior figure in one country said to me a few years ago – he said, I didn’t go through the colonial period and get rid of you people in order for you to come back in a different form and do the same to me as you were doing before.

[NPR’S TOM] GJELTEN: One more consideration – Christians in the global South often compete with Muslims. Philip Jenkins, a religion historian at Baylor University, says their resistance to same-sex marriage must be seen in that context.

PHILIP JENKINS: If they were ever to waiver on these gay issues, they think that would just hand a massive propaganda victory to Muslims. Christians in those countries would be seen as just toeing the Western line, giving way to Western immorality.

Read or listen to it all.

GAFCON was established in 2008 to restore scriptural fidelity to the Anglican Communion.

And in the United Kingdom, evangelical Anglican pastors have watched with trepidation as the linchpin in the debate””the Church of England””works loose from biblical orthodoxy. Sam Allberry, associate pastor of St. Mary’s Maidenhead, in Berkshire, is same-sex attracted and has championed the cause of similar Christians seeking to live in faithfulness to God’s Word””which means celibate living in singleness.

“God’s Word on this is not only clear, but I think it is good,” Allberry said during a 2014 conference hosted by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Read it all.

[Jesus]..was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray…” (Luke 11:1)

This Delphi Technique was developed by the RAND Corporation for the U.S. Department of Defense back in the 1950s. It was originally intended for use as a psychological weapon during the cold war. However, it was soon recognized that the steps of Delphi could be very valuable in manipulating ANY meeting toward a pre-determined end.

How does the process take place? The techniques are well developed and well defined. First, the person who will be leading the meeting, the facilitator or Change Agent must be a likeable person with whom those participating in the meeting can agree or sympathize with. It is, therefore, the job of the facilitator to find a way to cause a split in the audience, to establish one or a few of the people as “bad guys” while the facilitator is perceived as the “good guy.” Facilitators are trained to recognize potential opponents and how to make such people appear aggressive, foolish, extremist, etc. Once this is done, the facilitator establishes himself or herself as the “friend” of the rest of the audience. The stage is now set for the rest of the agenda to take place.

At this point, the audience is generally broken up into “discussion groups” of seven or eight people each. Each of these groups is to be led by a subordinate facilitator. Within each group, discussion takes place of issues, already decided upon by the leadership of the meeting. Here, too, the facilitator manipulates the discussion in the desired direction, isolating and demeaning opposing viewpoints. Generally, participants are asked to write down their ideas and disagreements with the papers to be turned in and “compiled” for general discussion after the general meeting is re-convened.

THIS is the weak link in the chain which you are not supposed to recognize. WHO compiles the various notes into the final agenda for discussion? AHHHH! Well, it is those who are running the meeting. How do you know that the ideas on YOUR notes were included in the final result. You DON’T! You may realize that your idea was NOT included and come to the conclusion that you were probably in the minority. Recognize that every OTHER citizen member of this meeting has written his or her likes or dislikes on a similar sheet of paper and they, too, have no idea whether THEIR ideas were “compiled” into the final result! You don’t even know if ANYONE’S ideas are part of the final “conclusions” presented to the re-assembled group as the “consensus” of public opinion. Rarely, does anyone challenge the process since each concludes that he or she was in the minority and different from all the others. So, now, those who organized the meeting in the first place are able to tell the participants AND THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY that the conclusions, reached at the meeting, are the result of public participation. Actually, the desired conclusions had been established, in the back room, long before the meeting ever took place. There are variations in the technique to fit special situations but, in general, the procedure outlined above takes place.

Read it all and there is more here. Prior uses by Canterbury of this technique were noted in the Dublin Primates Meeting where Justin Welby acted as a Facilitator; the CofE Synod; the Shared Conversations on Sexual Immorality where Canterbury hopes that this Primates Meeting will clear the way for changes in CofE teaching in the General Synod according to David Porter

Up to 15 of the 38 prelates taking part in the talks are also understood to have withdrawn from joint prayer services in Canterbury Cathedral in a sign of the depth of the divisions over issues such as homosexuality.
But sources claimed that fears of a dramatic public walkout on the first few days of the talks had been avoided by negotiation tactics involving separating people into small groups, unable even to communicate with each other for most of the time.
Clerics are understood to have been asked to hand in mobile phones for much of the time during the talks, overseen by two trained “facilitators” specialising in “reconciliation” tactics.

Read it all.

Reading George’s report, including the report that the Delphi Method was introduced into the Primates Meeting on Tuesday, brought back memories of years of meetings in the Episcopal Church before we experienced the division, where the Delphi Method was also employed regularly in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. I attended many of those meetings as President of Region VII in the Diocese of Virginia and it was how George describes it in his article. It was clear that it was manipulative and designed to produce a particular result. If this method was used by the leadership from the Anglican Communion Office and Lambeth Palace, that would be a significant blunder.

Read it all

However, when the question was put to the group on Tuesday, the trajectory of the meeting shifted. Though details remain unconfirmed, it is believed Archbishop Welby attempted to use a technique he brought to the 2011 Dublin primates meeting.

In Dublin, Archbishop Welby — then the Dean of Liverpool — served as a facilitator of conversations amongst the primates using the Delphi Method. Developed by the RAND Corporation in the USA, the Delphi method is structured communication technique, where participants break into small groups and discuss set questions. A facilitator or change agent provides an anonymous summary of the discussions as well as the reasons for the participant’s judgments. Participants are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of their group — during the process the range of answers decreases and the group converges towards a “correct” answer.

Use of the Delphi method at the 2008 Lambeth Conference and other pan-Anglican gatherings has been sharply criticized by non-Western clergy, who see it as a paternalistic attempt to manipulate them and achieve a predetermined outcome, by adopting a “divide and conquer” approach. It is believed this method of discussion was resisted by some primates who wished to proceed as a committee of the whole.

Read it all

From here:

If Monday’s Evensong was the Spirit led Perfect Storm of Scripture and Tuesday’s was the despondent depths, tonight’s was the subdued but significant. With barely a minute to go there were the same number of Primates as yesterday and then suddenly Foley Beach joined them and sat down. The number of Primates in the Quire then doubled as in the remaining leaders processed in full choir robes, liberals and conservatives alike.
Clearly unity has been achieved for the moment and the Cathedral listened to Amos 3 teach us of punishment for sin and the saving of a remnant, and 1 Corinthians 2 speak of the power of proclaiming Christ crucified.
From conversation and prayer afterwards I discerned that the conservative Primates have neither caved in nor achieved their goals. I’m sure many will be frustrated by this, but we are not in the room and we do not know the dynamics at play.
Continue to pray for God to be glorified. There are two more days to go and tonight’s full house is clear evidence that our LORD is in the business of miracles. Pray also for the Archbishop of Canterbury and his wife (who is here supporting him) – the emotional and spiritual strain must be enormous.

The Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Rev Justin Welby has invited Jean Vanier, the Canadian Catholic theologian, to address the bitterly divided primates of the worldwide Anglican communion who have been meeting this week in Canterbury to discuss the themes of living together and the creation of a community.

After two-and-a-half days the 38 archbishops were still together, defying threats of an early walkout by some African leaders over the vexed issue of the western churches’ tortuous accommodation with homosexuality.

Third world archbishops, backed by some English and American conservative evangelicals, have repeatedly demanded over the last decade that liberal American, Canadian and some British churches should be punished for tolerating gay clergy and the meeting is seen as a last chance of compromise. There have been predictions that between three and a dozen archbishops may walk out if their demands are not met.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury could face a walk out Wednesday of conservative archbishops, whose call for him to honor past agreements of the primates meetings and to restore “godly order” to the Anglican Communion, appears not to have been met. Though no walk out has happened so far, and ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach has been a full participant from the start, the tone of the meeting has changed, and the pace has quickened.

On the second day of the gathering of primates, sources tell Anglican Ink, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was asked by leaders of the GAFCON and Global South Anglican movements to address the divisions within the Communion caused by innovations in doctrine and discipline adopted by the Episcopal Church of the USA and Anglican Church of Canada. Late on Tuesday, it appears he has failed to do so to their satisfaction.

Read it all.

Despite fervid media speculation of a walk out by some bishops on the first day of the meeting, the participants gathered for a public evensong service on Monday, accompanied by young people from the new religious community of St Anselm, launched by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at his London headquarters of Lambeth Palace last year.
Informal sources said during the first working session of the meeting the bishops focused on setting their agenda and listened to an address by Archbishop Welby on the history and key issues facing the Communion.
Ahead of the historic encounter, the Anglican leader asked people of faith to pray for the bishops so that they may be able to discern the will of God, despite the difficulties which challenge not only Christians but all of us in today’s world

Read it all and listen if you wish to.

We have reports from a number of people at Canterbury that tonight’s evensong was a very different affair to yesterday. All the GAFCON Primates were missing, along with a number of Global South (including Mouneer). Clearly something is afoot.

I’m not sure what you’re doing, but I’m going to be praying for Welby that he has the courage to do what is right.

John 17:17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

Read it all

From here:

So, it is two hours after Evensong in Canterbury Cathedral finished. Last night it was electric – the Holy Spirit preaching to the Church through the lectionary – Amos 1’s warning, 1 Corinthians 1 pleading for unity, practically all the Primates gathered. A real sense of God being present.
Tonight I sat in the Quire an hour before the service and just prayed for God to be glorified. Interspersed between my tongues I sang the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy which I realised afterward is to the tune Nicaea. Then the choir and Primates processed in. A third if not more of the Primates were missing and the atmosphere was totally different to Monday. Amos 2 moved from the warning of chapter 1 into judgement. Justin Welby spent large parts of the service knelt in prayer, almost oblivious to what was going on around him. I felt suddenly spiritually drained after the power of my hour of prayer. Afterwards a number of journalists wanted to ask me what I thought, but I needed a moment to myself. I was genuinely close to tears.
Clearly something is happening and it’s probably happening right now – we need to pray for the Primates and we need to pray for Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury. And don’t pray for what you want to happen, just pray for God to be glorified

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So Primates 2016 has begun and there is little to report. Actually there are some little things to report – let me explain.

Read it all

…while there are few official communications from the gathering, different groups of church officials have been communicating with their churches. Both ACNA ”” and the broader Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) group with which it is affiliated ”” have shared prayer requests and created web sites around the gathering, as has Welby via an official web site operated by the London-based Anglican Communion Office.

In contrast to Welby, who has granted multiple interviews in advance of the gathering, Episcopal Church officials have said little publicly. New Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is not regularly active on social media (Curry averaged one tweet a month for the past three months) and he has faced both an unplanned emergency surgery and the administrative suspension of three high-ranking church staff in the past month.

Read it all.

GAFCON Supporters Message 2016 from Greg Gorman on Vimeo.

…the unity of the Communion does not depend upon the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rather, it depends upon the various provinces being able to recognise each other, with all their differences of culture, as truly apostolic and committed to the faith as it has been received. Tragically, that recognition has now broken down and affection for Canterbury is no substitute. As the GAFCON movement affirmed in the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008,

”˜While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

The Anglican Communion is in danger of leaving aside the gospel of God’s costly grace to us sinners, replacing it with the poor substitute of cheap grace which makes us comfortable but can neither save nor transform. This is not the renewal and restoration which the GAFCON and other orthodox primates seek.

The choice before the Primates as they gather in Canterbury is whether they will take the difficult but necessary action to renew the confessional unity of the Communion placing the teaching of the bible at the centre of its sacramental life and witness, or whether they will accept a merely cosmetic institutional restructuring which will see it increasingly taken captive by the dominant secular culture of the West.

Watch and read it all.

…sources have told The Telegraph that some conservative Primates had been led to expect a more fundamental discussion about teaching in sexuality on other issues rather than change in structures to accommodate division.

Sources claimed that the first some clerics attending the meeting had known of the plan was when it was reported in the British media last year.

Several Primates are understood to be backing a warning by the Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Rev Stanley Ntagali, that there would be a walkout if there is no discussion on restoring what he called “godly order” to the Anglican Communion by punishing the Americans for their liberal shift…

Read it all

Archbishop Hiltz’s predictions of the first day flow of events appears to have been borne out. AI can confirm the primates spent Monday morning in prayer and the afternoon in hearing an address by Archbishop Welby and in setting the agenda for the week ahead.

AI has seen what purports to be a copy of the archbishop’s address, and has asked the Lambeth Palace press office to confirm its veracity. If the document is correct, then the themes identified by Archbishop Hiltz in his Anglican Journal interview were present in Archbishop Welby’s address. The archbishop’s aides have not responded so far.

Nor can claims that an overnight ultimatum was given by the GAFCON block to Archbishop Welby be verified.

Read it all.

Today's Collect for #Primates2016 is a prayer by William Temple: https://t.co/2TvcTRLZBa #OneFamily pic.twitter.com/CUAlmcA5en

— Primates 2016 (@Primates2016) January 12, 2016

The reality is that a Church such as the Anglican Communion is such a mixture of histories, and of theological difference, that inevitably there will be deep differences and from time to time these will lead to grave crises, such as the one faced in recent years.

Like all crises in the church it is complicated. It springs from history, the history of centuries a history of Anglicanism and of the church in England which began before the fall of the Roman Empire and long before Augustine, with Bishops, including at York.

Read it all.

Found here:

Perfect storm of Scripture at BCP Evensong tonight in Canterbury Cathedral.

Psalms 59-61
Amos 1
Magnificat
1 Corinthians 1:1-17
Nunc Dimittis

O Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness

And for those for whom numbers are important, I counted them all in (including Foley) and I counted them all back out again.

[John] Stott takes time in his speech to detail the specific circumstances in which a Christian might be justified leaving his or her denomination. To him, those circumstances include the following situations (as The Very Rev. Justyn Terry once summarized Stott’s points):

When an issue of first order is at stake, such as deserves the condemnation of “anitchrist” (1 John 2:22) or “anathema” (Gal 1:8-9)
When the offending issue is not just held by an idiosyncratic minority of individuals but has become the official position of the majority
When the majority have silenced the faithful remnant, forbidding them to witness or protest any longer
When we have conscientiously explored every possible alternative
When, after a painful period of prayer and discussion, our conscience can bear the weight no longer

These, I take it, are the kinds of criteria that GAFCON leaders and others are weighing as they gather together. And, in particular, Stott’s fourth point seems to be what the Archbishop of Canterbury is trying to explore. While I have reasoned hope that these criteria have not been met and the Communion still has a way forward, they are (it must be said) not simple questions.

Read it all.

I’ve done my very best over the past month to talk to as many people in the know as I can and I think the very best outline of events I can give you is this:

1.the GAFCON Primates will hold the line on discipline. I have this from a source very close to senior GAFCON leadership. I would be very surprised if more than a handful of GAFCON Primates don’t join in this very clear stand.
2. the same source advises me that a number of the non-GAFCON Global South (GS) Primates will also be taking this same stand.
3. Justin Welby will invite TEC and the ACC to consider their position, acting as mediator not enforcer. This is now my gut speaking. I can’t see Welby execute discipline himself. He is far too rooted into his “reconciliation” scheme to actually take the lead that he needs to. He also has the unity of the Church of England to consider. If it were known that he was the one who clearly told TEC/ACC that if nothing changed they were no longer welcome, nor at the upcoming Lambeth Conference, then he might very well face an open revolt just the other side of the Lambeth Palace walls.
4. TEC/ACC would ask for more time. Perhaps a night to sleep on it, perhaps another appeal to “not being able to speak on behalf of the General Convention” (which was the way Griswold and then Schori avoided the issue before). They then might come back with a proposal that would be simply unacceptable to GAFCON. They will also effectively be calling Welby’s bluff to do something, daring him to be the one to enforce the will of the majority GAFCON group (and, no doubt, portraying that will as bullying).
5.Welby tries to broker an agreement rather than taking the lead.
6. GAFCON/GS partners walk. We never get to the Gathering – the meeting has failed because Welby has failed to lead at the moment where he should. I first made this prediction back in September when the meeting was originally announced.

Read it all.

A schism in the Anglican Communion would be a “failure” but not a “disaster”, the Archbishop of Canterbury said on Monday, shortly before the opening of the first meeting of Primates since 2011.

Interviewed on Today on BBC Radio 4, Archbishop Welby said that he “certainly” wanted reconciliation; but he went on: “There is nothing I can do if people decide that they want to leave the room,” Such a walk-out ”” reckoned to be 90-per-cent likely, according to one senior church source”” “won’t split the Communion”, he said.

He explained: “The Church is a family, and you remain a family even if you go your separate ways. That has always been the case, and it always will be. God puts us together, and we have to work out how we live with that, and how we serve God faithfully in a way that shows that you can disagree profoundly and still love and care for each other.”

He went on: “A schism would not be a disaster in the sense you put it. God is bigger than our failures. But it would be a failure. It would not be good if the Church is unable to set the example to the world of showing how we can live with one another and disagree profoundly, because we are brought together by Jesus Christ, not by our own choice.”

Read it all.