The primates’ letter had received the unanimous endorsement of the primates, Archbishop Williams said. However, the WCG’s communication was a report prepared by a committee appointed by Archbishop Williams and presented by him to the primates as a resource document; it was not submitted to a vote. Many parts of the communiqué refer to passages from the 17-page WCG report. Other sections of the communiqué refer to the document on gracious restraint. The sections mentioned in the communiqué indicate broader support among the primates.
This communiqué, perhaps to a more significant degree than others in recent years, attempts to look to doctrine rather than legislation or political solutions. The primates pick up a theme from the Windsor Report, which questioned whether the Communion suffered from an “ecclesial deficit, in other words, do we have the necessary theological structural and cultural foundations to sustain the life of the Communion? We need to address divisive issues in a timely and effective way, and to learn the responsibilities and obligations of interdependence.”
The Episcopal Church and the proposed Anglican Church of North America both received support, as well as pointed but fair questions about their conduct and objectives. For instance, The Episcopal Church was praised for its efforts to date to exercise “gracious restraint” in not consecrating any additional openly gay bishops. The proponents of the proposed new parallel province in North America were reassured that they were Anglican, and that they were deserving of some measure of protection from legal attacks, at least in the short term.
The Living Church may need to reassess this in light of the letter Bishop Ackinola just wrote the ABC. http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9919
Brother Michael: Thank you for the link. The attached AAC document really ties it all together. Everybody please take the time to read it. If all the primates read it, their would be no ambiguity as to whether the Anglican Communion’s fabric is torn.
And I think that it means that the Global South is going to move independently of the the AC.
Mmmm…
“….it would be inaccurate to state that the primates have given up trying to bring about reconciliation.”
From his comments this is also very clearly not the conclusion of the Archbishop of Uganda.
Living Church have seriously misunderstood what is happening.
To describe the actions of the American Episcopal “Church” as “gracious restraint” is to do such violence to the plain meaning of the words as to deprive them of any significance.
Umm, the “proposed Anglican Church in North America?” Sorry, but we’re already here, in case the author of this article hasn’t noticed.