American Church leaders claimed this week that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s new group of Pastoral Visitors is ”˜too little, too late’. As the number of lawsuits between the Episcopal Church (TEC) and breakaway conservative groups approaches 60, some say the initiative ”“ intended to help repair the torn fabric of the Anglican Communion ”“ lacks integrity.
The names of the bishops who will act as ”˜mediators’ were announced this week by Lambeth Palace. The statement said that the bishops had attended a meeting at Virginia Theological Seminary in the USA from February 25 ”“ 28. The purpose of the new group is to assist in healing the current tensions in the Anglican Communion by holding ”˜face to face’ meetings with church leaders in both the new American provinces and TEC.
But the Rev Philip Ashey, Chief Operating Officer for the American Anglican Council, a grouping of conservative Anglicanism, was deeply concerned about Lambeth’s response. Speaking from Atlanta, Georgia, he said: “Every pastoral visitor programme suggested so far has …[omitted] the participation of the parties who have been aggrieved, those people who have left TEC.”
[blockquote] His concerns were echoed by Canon Chris Sugden, the co-organiser of the Gafcon conference in Jerusalem. He said: “Until and unless they meet and talk with the people who actually have these grievances the whole process lacks integrity.â€[/blockquote]
The only insiders who have significant credility with the outsiders are the bishops who attended GAFCon:
[blockquote]
– Keith Ackerman, Quincy
– James Adams, Western Kansas
– Peter Beckwith, Springfield
– Mark Lawrence, South Carolina
– William Love, Albany
– Bruce MacPherson, Western Louisiana[/blockquote]
The Ugley vicar has a interesting discussion on this, [url=http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2009/03/suddenly-its-over-for-anglican.html ]here[/url]
Far, FAR too little, and far FAR too late. If one were not entirely sure of Rowan Williams’ sincerity one might think he has been deliberately dragging his feet all along in order to accomplish a TEC theo/ideological hegemony in the Anglican Communion. Or, alternatively, one might be tempted to think of him as a confrontation-averse academic weakling who has been promoted above his skill-set. That would probably be a somewhat excessive reaction, however, deriving from years of disappointing inaction and effulgent non-starters emitted into the already hazy Anglican ecosystem by Lambeth Palace.
Not only that but he sat on the Brazil thing for so long as to make it worthless. The ABC did not want anything to come out of Brazil that would adversely affect his friends at TEC.
Regarding Francis’ comment. Rowan Williams made the bizarre statement that mediation talks were making significant advancements in Recife, Brazil. Oh, really? Bp Cavalcanti doesn’t know anything about that:
[url=http://www.americananglican.org/no-mediation-process-begun-in-brazil ]RECIFE: NO MEDIATION PROCESS BEGUN IN BRAZIL[/url]
“Too Little Too Late” — how familiar is THAT refrain!
But the good news … from my side of the aisle, that is … is that the more that refrain gets repeated, the less energy the “middle” has to reach out to the schismatic fringe.
So we’ll be making sure this story gets WIDE release. Thanks! (And glad to see you guys back up and running … missed you in Blog Land!)
RE: “But the good news … from my side of the aisle, that is … is that the more that refrain gets repeated, the less energy the “middle†has to reach out to the schismatic fringe.”
The good news is that SR misreads “the middle” — a fairly typical act of constancy on her part — since she’s so far left she’s wrapped back around the world to the right.
Not to mention her being impelled again to count coup — a native American custom that is “a nonviolent demonstration of braveryâ€â€”public demonstration in particular—consisting of “touching an enemy warrior, with the hand or with a coup stick, then running away unharmed.