Indecision and delay in responding to the crisis of faith and order over homosexuality will likely wreck the Anglican Communion, the Primate of the West Indies told his diocesan synod last week.
On Oct 22 Archbishop Drexel Gomez told the 107th session of the Diocese of the Bahamas synod gathered at Christ Church Cathedral in Nassau that reform was needed now to save the Communion.“It is clear that the future of the Anglican Communion is unclear at the moment but there can be no doubt that the future shape of Anglicanism will have to undergo significant adjustments if the Communion is to remain intact,” he said.
The adoption of an Anglican Covenant would go a long way towards restoring trust and accountability within the Communion, he said. However, the crisis of gay bishops and blessings could not be paperedover without dire consequences to the integrity of the Church as the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 ”˜changed everything,’ he explained.
Archbishop Gomez also said the Communion must also resolve the issue of bishops acting outside their territories and the plight of embattled traditionalists in US and Canadian dioceses and restorecatholic order to the church.
Chairman of the Anglican Covenant Design Group, Archbishop Gomez is considered one of the key international players whose support Dr Williams’ needs to keep the Communion going. The WestIndian primate is not likely to lend his support to the ACC’s attempt to rehabilitate the Episcopal Church, however.
Speaking to The Christian Challenge magazine, Archbishop Gomez said the ACC’s joint standing committee report of Sept that gave the US church a passing grade in complying with the primates’ requests was ”˜was more generous than I feel they should be.’ The Global South coalition of primates is expected to issue a statement this coming week that endorses the position of the African provinces, which held that the New Orleans statement failed to adequately respond to the requests made of the American Church by the wider Anglican Communion.
–This article appears in the November 2nd, 2007, edition of the Church of England Newspaper on page 7
From the Anglican Mainstream article:
[blockquote] INDECISION and delay in responding to the crisis of faith and order over homosexuality will likely wreck the Anglican Communion [/blockquote]
Ought to remove “will likely wreck” and substitute HAS BEEN AND IS RIGHT NOW WRECKING in its place.
Golly, the editor in me just loves to jump in on these things.
Prayers for the Communion are found at [url=http://lent.classicalanglican.net/?p=4089]Lent & Beyond[/url].
Factual correction: the report was not issued by “the ACC’s joint standing committee” (there is no such thing). It was issued by the Joint Standing Committee (meaning the combined membership of the separate Standing Committees) of the Primates and Anglican Consultative Council. Abp. Gomez knows better, so I assume the error was by the Christian Challenge. It might be nice if people would just report the facts instead of editorializing in a news story by turning a joint Primates/ACC statement (even if it only represented the views of 9 or 10 of the 14 members present at their New Orleans meeting) into the “ACC’s attempt to rehabilitate the Episcopal Church.”
For far too long has the welfare of the majority been jeopardized by the few. Time to get on with becoming an Anglican Communion with substance rather than the stage from which Norteamericanos imperialize the world spiritually as well as politically, militarily, economically, and culturally.
Every day that passes sees the forces of revision and heresy grow stronger, with a metasticized constituency.
We need to get ++Rowan a new fiddle to saw away at while the Communion burns. This one is surely spent by now.
Whatever the body is to be called, it’s pretty hard to dispute its “attempt to rehabilitate the Episcopal Church.”
Undue haste will just as surely wreck the Communion.
Makersmarc, the Communion repeatedly tried to tell Griswold that, the ECUSA/TEC that, the GC that. You see how they listened. Now the whirlwind returns. Congratulations to ECUSA/TEC for “listening”.
I’ll give you that point, dwstroudmd. As sympathetic as I am, I still would not have voted in affirmation of Bsp Robinson’s consecration if I had been a deputy to GC, partly for that reason.