The biennial meeting of Anglican primates will take place Tuesday in Dublin despite the absence of about a quarter of the senior Anglican church leaders, most of whom are boycotting the presence of the presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church.
As many as ten of the leaders of the Communion’s 38 provinces will not attend the meeting because of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori, who represents the Episcopal Church and a supporter of gay bishops and same-sex marriage.
Read it all and note that, As Mouneer Anis said in Charleston at the Mere Anglicanism Conference, “this is not a boycott.”
It may not be a boycott, but the primates meeting chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury is starting its downward slide to irrelevancy in the Communion.
Not that the primates themselves irrelevant – far from it! Most of them are strongly orthodox, and therefore they are increasingly recognised as the true leadership of the Anglican Communion. But the primates meeting chaired by the ABC (and neutered by his intrigues) is losing whatever status it formerly had.
In its place, meetings of the orthodox primates (where openly apostate leaders like KJ Schori and ++Hiltz are not invited) are becoming the true communion leadership.
[blockquote] The agenda for the Anglican Primate meeting, from Jan. 25 to 30, will be developed during the course of the meeting, according to the Anglican Communion’s website. [/blockquote]
Calling a meeting without an agenda – what sort of leadership is that?!? This is just another example of the vaccuum at the top of the Anglican Communion, which is why the vast majority of Communion members (i.e. the orthodox) look to the primates for leadership.
With the regard of the upcoming Primate’s meeting, (Dublin, Ireland Jan 25-30, 2011) we are not boycotting. Many have said that we are boycotting this meeting. We however are not attending.
Why? Because we did ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to follow up on the recommendations of the previous meeting (Dar es Salaam, 2006; no meeting was held in 2008 because of the Lambeth Conference). At that meeting we discussed, decided and recommended actions. This was never done. It is time for decisions after comprehensive discussion.
For this meeting, we received an invitation to sit in 2 separate rooms: the revisionists in one and the Global South in another. This is a joke. We were not given a chance to affect the process and have some ownership of the meeting. When we are given that opportunity, we will attend. This is from Cherie Wetzel’s report on the speech.
note that, As Mouneer Anis said in Charleston at the Mere Anglicanism, “this is not a boycott.” – Kendall+
One of the problems, on both sides, is the refusal to call something what it is. This is indeed a boycott. It meets the legal definition of a boycott and has the same goals as a boycott. I would ask what the difference is in +Mouneer’s opinion?
I was there at Mere Anglicanism, Archbishop Anis said that their decision to not attend the primates meeting is not a boycott. Archbishop Mouneer Anis simply stated that attending is “a waste of time”- nothing else. Yes he did mention that those primates would be open to a meeting where issues are discussed. I believe he said that they are not be afraid of discussion. An invitation to be in two rooms obviously means that discussion is NOT the goal hence the Archbishop’s statement of attending being “a waste of time”.
If these primates were truly boycotting the other primates, they would refuse to have anything do with them ever until their goals were accomplished- that is the dictionary definition of a boycott. I don’t think this is the attitude of these primates. However they are not wanting to waste their time and money attending a meeting where their input is not wanted and there is little/no likelihood of discussion.
Truthfully what i thought when he said this is that a few of the revisionists like KJS+ should attend a meeting of orthodox primates. As the orthodox will be in majority they can control the discussion and make it clear what is necessary to go forward. IMVHO.
I don’t see the point of quibbling over whether it’s a “boycott” or a “refusal” or whatever as sitting in separate rooms is not a meeting. If that’s all they’re going to do, there’s no way I would ever recommend spending money to sit in separate rooms. Not even if the meeting’s in Dublin.
Yes, the point here is that what the ABoC has called is by definition NOT a Primates Meeting. Once he introduced the idea of “facilitators” to prevent any actual discussion (rather, everyone gives their reflections) it ceased to be a Primates Meeting. Arguably, the presence in the meeting of anyone other than the Primates and perhaps a secretary to take minutes (or perhaps witnesses or experts they all agreed to hear) would seem to negate the very purpose of the meeting.
You can certainly make a case that 2 of the Primates in the room are not Primates of the Anglican Communion at all. All the Instruments of Communion have already determined that the actions of TEC and the ACoC place their churches outside the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion, and indeed those 2 churches are no longer in communion, sacramentally, with 60-70% of the world’s Anglicans. Therefore, they may or may not be primates of some sort, but it is difficult to see how they can be Primates of the Communion when they can barely maintain communion with 1/3 of it.
And the missing 10 Primates represent what percent of the total Communion? Significantly more than half I would guess. The fact that someone like Bishop Mouneer is not attending is especially notable as he has heretofore been reluctant to withdraw from meetings such as this – a clear indication that his remarkable patience has reached its limit.
I believe there are 38 Provinces.
Of course it surely is true that the 10 or so Primates lead a large proportion of worldwide Anglicans.
Dr Williams is not a focus of unity in the AC….. his actions have created disunity e.g. his Lambeth invitations and his invitations to the Dublin meeting…. the AC is living with the consequences of his decisions NOT to listen to the Primates and Windsor but to keep revisionists who have torn the fabric of the Communion more than once and just recently still in the councils of the Communion. Actions have consequences…Dr Williams’ actions certainly have had consequences for the AC
The spineless “divide-and-conquer” M.O. is such, methinks, because it keeps stronger and more numerous primates from taking the agenda off the table, as has happened at previous primates’ meetings. It’s a dumb strategy that will eventually solve nothing and go nowhere, but maybe that’s the point.