Four outside facilitators led the primates in their indaba-style discussions: Stephen Lyon, Church of England Partnership for World Mission secretary and administrator of the ACO’s Bible in the Life of the Church project; Alice Mogwe, director of DITSHWANELO – the Botswana Centre for Human Rights; Dr. Cecilia Clegg, a Roman Catholic nun and an expert in reconciliation and conflict transformation who teaches at the University of Edinburgh; and the Rev. Canon Justin Welby, dean of Liverpool Cathedral and one of the Pastoral Visitors appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. All have extensive experience in facilitation and mediation, according to Anglican Communion Office spokesperson, Jan Butter. Mogwe and Clegg both participated in the Continuing Indaba Project as facilitators for one of the planning pilot conversations last year.
In addition to the four facilitators, a team of 15 “organizers”, most coming from the Anglican Communion Office, managed the tightly controlled meeting of 23 primates….
Tight Control? Understated?
[blockquote] “For the few journalists that followed the meeting…”
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That says it all.
Rowan Williams was determined to stop the primates meeting making calls that he didn’t like. There were to be no more Dromantines, no more Dars. But in the process, he has destroyed the credibility of the primates meeting. The irony is that Rowan Williams himself has cleared the way for a rival meeting to take the place of the Primates meeting.
It seems to me that the point to this last Primates meeting was to do away with the “effectiveness” of the Primates meeting. Mission accomplished?