The Primates who have turned down the invitation to this week’s Primates’ Meeting because of developments in The Episcopal Church are still committed to the Anglican Communion.
In an interview today with BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence programme, Anglican Communion Secretary General Canon Kenneth Kearon told presenter William Crawley that at Communion meetings there are always a number of participants who cannot come for a variety of reasons including health or diary commitments.
[blockquote] “The Primates who have turned down the invitation to this week’s Primates’ Meeting because of developments in The Episcopal Church are still committed to the Anglican Communion.”
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Yes, they’ve already said that, several times. The one quarter of the world’s bishops who failed to turn up to Lambeth Conference in 2008 said the same.
The things is, these primates and bishops are mostly not committed to an Anglican Communion where Canon Kearon has any meaningful role to play, so his days are numbered.
[blockquote] “Canon Kearon gave as an example of those who would likely leave their decision to attend until the last minute the Primates of Sudan and Australia whose countries are dealing with major issues including a referendum and flooding respectively.” [/blockquote]
Two very different cases: the primate of Sudan is known for his commitment to orthodoxy, whereas the primate of Australia is chiefly known for being the only Australian bishop to invite Kathryn Jefferts Schori to speak in his diocese during her recent tour down under.
[blockquote] “In response to a question about what would be the outcome of the meeting, Canon Kearon said that that was in the hands of the Primates.” [/blockquote]
How very amusing! It is already clear that ABC and Canon Kearon intend to use a quasi “Indaba” process to hinder or prevent the meeting coming to any outcome that they disagree with.
[blockquote] “It has a lot of moral authority based on the fact that it is composed of Primates but it isn’t a body that votes on resolutions, it doesn’t have that kind of procedural or constitutional nature.” [/blockquote]
Really? And that is why the primates meetings in Dromantine and Dar Es Salaam issued clear and strong communiques calling for the disciplining of TEC and the establishment of a new American province if it did not accept that discipline? But of course, Canon Kearon and ABC would rather forget that those things ever happened.
Anyway, why should the orthodox worry? By foolish intrigues like this, Kearon+ simply ensures that a primates meeting called and presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury will no longer have credibility among the orthodox (who are most of the Communion). That will leave the way clear for orthodox primates meetings (notably the Global South conference) to take its place.
I’m always comforted when the Minister of Propaganda explains it all for me.
It would be interesting to know whether Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, Primate of the Sudan, would have attended anyway. His news conference during Lambeth 08 was refreshingly candid, and it is far from clear that he would have attended the PM, regardless of the situation in the Sudan.
It is also worth noting that there is no mention of the ‘facilitator’ in this news release. The ACO seem to be giving that a much lower profile in the lead up to the meeting, perhaps because the use of such a facilitator suggests the meeting may otherwise be dysfunctional and the chairing of such discussions problematic.
I am surprise that the Standing Committee did not issue substitute “Primates” assignments and chairs to the likes of say Ian Douglas and Janet Trisk so to look after Uganda and Nigerian interests. After all 50,000,000 Anglicans unrepresented can’t be all wrong.
Intercessor
Prayers may be found [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/primates-prayer-collection/]here[/url]. In 1742, Handel’s [i]Messiah[/i] premiered in Dublin. One idea is to play the music, dedicating it to the glory of God within the Anglican Communion and praying for the magnification of Christ’s holy name over each primate.
The ACO is, as they themselves advertise, simply a secretariat for the various Instruments of Communion. That is they are, in theory, the clerical civil servants serving and implementing the policy recommendations of the Instruments. For reasons that aren’t clear to me, the ACO seems incapable of functioning in such a way.
BTW I’ve been reading the reports from Lambeth I (1867) and to my surprise discovered that clear recommendations for structures to resolve Communion wide doctrinal disputes and arbitrate episcopal discipline were made. None were acted upon by the then ABC. The Canadian Bishops requested they be discussed at Lambeth II (1878). They were not placed on the agenda by the ABC.
Funnily, the ABC of the time had given private assurances before the Conference to various parties (English bishops) that the pressing doctrinal controversy of the day, namely the authority of Scripture and the ability of the church to discipline a bishop widely considered heretical, would not even be permitted to be discussed. Such assurances were unknown to the non-English bishops invited. When the ABC’s private assurance was made public at the start of the Lambeth Conference it was met by indignation. At least some of the Bishops (notably the Bishop of Cape Town and the then PB of the Episcopal Church) said they would not have attended had they known that the very issue they had traveled for weeks or months to discuss, could not even be raised. In fact, they were so insistent, that it was placed on the agenda though only a neutered resolution condemning the heretical bishop was passed, to save the ABC embarrassment. Even so, the great majority of the bishops (almost all of the bishops gathered except the English bishops), unhappy with the mildness of the official resolution, signed a Declaration after the completion of the Conference condemning the bishop considered heretical in much more forthright language.
What goes around, comes around.
I’m baffled by this.
1. Surely it is the Primates who decide the shape of their meetings, not the civil servants. As a matter of fact they have, I believe, voted on resolutions at past meetings.
2. The act of offering moral guidance is itself a decision.
3. All of the Instruments have only moral authority over canonically independent Provinces yet the ACC even now and every Lambeth Conference but 2008 vote on resolutions. The fact the Primates also share this moral authority seems no bar to discussing and passing resolutions should they desire to do so.
4. Lambeth 1998 resolution III.6, affirmed an “enhanced” responsibility for the Primates, including “intervening” in crises which provinces are themselves incapable of resolving and giving guidance on the limits of Anglican diversity. (An outsider would imagine that it is the Secretariat’s task to help ensure this is effected).
It seems that when convenient, according to Kearon over the years, none of the so called “instruments of unity” have any real authority only “moral authority”. It seems to be a grand round robin–always looking to the next meeting of the next instrument, but when we finally get there that instrument seems to have no authority to actually do anything.
If that is true then of what use is the AC itself except as mode of endless debate never reaching resolution?