Asked how the conference would address the issue of homosexuality, Archbishop Williams said one day on the schedule was reserved to consider “sexuality questions as they affect the ministry of bishops,” including a report on the listening process from the Rev. Canon Phil Groves of the Anglican Communion Office. “It [also] is inevitably going to be part of the conversations informally, day by day as people will bring to the conference what their anxieties are and what their hopes are. There will not be a resolution on this subject.”
Archbishop Williams reiterated that Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire has not been invited “and it’s proving extremely difficult to see under what heading he might be invited to be around.” Asked whether he had considered inviting all bishops, including CANA bishops and Bishop Robinson, Archbishop Williams said he had, but “I thought it best to stick fairly closely with what the Windsor Report recommends, that we should see this as an event for those who have accepted the general direction of the Windsor Report and haven’t flown in the face of its recommendations.”
Regarding the attendance of San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield, inhibited by the Presiding Bishop earlier this month, the archbishop said he is “waiting on what comes out of the American House of Bishops’ discussion of that. It’s not something I’ve got a position on yet. At the moment he still has an invitation.”
[blockquote]”At the moment he still has an invitation.â€[/blockquote]
Of course JD still has an invitation. He’s only been inhibited. When the HOB deposes him, the ABC would then have grounds to withdraw the invitation. To ask him to do so prematurely would be unseemly.
Mr. Williams sounds so logical. But he is only logical if one accepts that a “church” and a “garden club” are equivilent.
“There will not be a resolution on this subject”
Is there any schedule set down in the long or the short term for actually making decisions in these matters?
I guess the waiting is already over. The ACO has removed John-David Schofield from the entire Communion, as Fr. Jake points out:
Now, whose side was Rowan Williams on again?
Good but slightly surprising to know Fr. Jake is against the dsisciplining of the Bishop. For if he is not the Bishop of an Episcopal Diocese then he can’t be disciplined by the Episcopal House of Bishops, n’est ce pas?
I suggest that Rowan Cantuar should tell the Anglican Communion Office to contact the Most Rev Gregory James Venables, Archbishop of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of the Americas, and tell HIM that Bishop Schofield’s name has been “removed from the listing in the Provincial Directory of the Anglican Communion.” I’m sure that he would have something to say about that!
Somebody has a lot of explaining to do!
I noticed on the ACO site that Bennison (inhibited) is listed as Bishop of PA.
Perhaps the ACO is making the distinction that Bennison did not leave TEC whereas JD (supposedly) did.
Phil S.: Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? There is no way at all that the ACO can spin that as being fair, especially since Bennison was inhibited a long time before Schofield was.
Smuggs, are you suggesting that the ACO has a rule for whether they list inhibited bishops based upon the charges for the inhibition? Given the farcical nature of the Anglican communion perhaps they do.
Some inhibited bishops are just [url=http://ecusania.blogspot.com/]more equal[/url] than others, I suppose. Either that, or the ACO knows whose checks they’ve been cashing.
So, what Archbishop Williams is saying is that the bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson ‘ . . . have accepted the general direction of the Windsor Report and haven’t flown in the face of its recommendations’ ?? I can think of 20 or so of them who would vehemently disagree with that statement.
anglicanhopeful: great analysis! I’d LOL if I wasn’t already in tears over the current ABC’s recent mushy behaviors! Thanks.
John-David Schofield is not a bishop in the US. The real question is when is he going to be listed in the Southern Cone?
Gosh, someone who says he is not a bishop in the Episcopal Church is not listed as such on the ACO website. Isn’t that odd?
As for listing as a Southern Cone bishop: Abp. Carey created the precedent that, until there is some consensus within the Communion to the contrary, its central organs will not recognize a bishop canonically resident in one province who is physically resident and exercising his ministry within another province without its consent. The contrary consensus has not yet emerged as far as I can tell. Until it does, the AMiA, CANA, and other Common Cause bishops will remain in Anglican limbo.
Thus, the non-listing isn’t the result of a liberal ACO staff gone crazy, but of them doing what they are paid to do, which is to implement policy rather than make it.
So, I guess Venables has a lot of explaining to do!
Dale, and this ABC has established the precedent that those in Gene Robinson’s “situation” are also not recognized, by the same standard that he has not been extended a Lambeth invitation. What do you suppose the just-following-policy ACO staff has under New Hampshire – vacant?
Be more accurate, Dale – the ACO staff, which is “liberal,” is following policy, all right – ECUSA’s.
Which makes sense, by the way – he who pays the piper calls the tune. At least, that’s the way it works in secular society. Whether it should work that way in Canterbury’s bureaus is debatable, to say the least.