Archbishop of Armagh Richard Clarke said he believes that Dr Welby will “evaluate the situation” before confirming a date for the next Lambeth Conference which is due to be held in 2018.
Dr Clarke told The Irish Catholic that Archbishop Welby is still a relatively short time in office and that he needed some time to hear the views of the different Provinces about “what kind of Lambeth do we want, what would be appropriate.”
He said: “I think Archbishop Welby, like the good hard-headed businessman that he was, is taking a step back, trying to survey the scene, and seeing what is the best way for us to take counsel together and in what format.
“He is not a man who is going to be wrong-footed, nor is he going to be frog-marched,” Dr Clarke said.
It sounds like questions have been asked in the Church of Ireland about why the Lambeth Conference will not take place in 2018. Otherwise, why make these comments, and why now?
[blockquote] “The last meeting in Canterbury in 2008 was marred by boycotts by African and other global south bishops who objected to the consecration of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in the United States. Other bishops and archbishops who did attend, however, were incensed that Bishop Robinson was not himself invited out of an attempt to appease the conservative wing.” [/blockquote]
Wow, someone actually admits that there was conflict and disagreement. That is a positive development. The whole idea of the “indaba”-style Conference in 2008 seemed to be to pretend that no conflict existed.
[blockquote] “Archbishop Clarke, who attended two Lambeth Conferences in 1998 and 2008 as Bishop of Meath and Kildare, said he saw the conference as “an opportunity to go further into our roots of friendship and into our common heritage and should not be seen as the definitive magisterium of the Anglican Communionâ€.”[/blockquote]
That’s all that the CofE hierarchy ever wanted the Lambeth Conference to be – a friendly little tea-party. But they got a powerful shock in 1998 when Resolution 1.10 on human sexuality was forced onto the agenda, from the floor, and then passed overwhelmingly. That resolution was not on Archbishop Carey’s agenda. Alarmingly for the Lambeth hierarchy, a precedent had been set for the rest of the Communion to have some input into the agenda.
Since then, the bishops of the CofE have been working hard to find a way of holding Lambeth Conference as they would like it – a quiet, neutered, rubber-stamp for whatever the CofE hierarchy proposes.
That is also the way they would like to see the Anglican Communion operate – as a quiet gathering that adds a bit of kudos and agreement to decisions taken in England, but the constituent parts otherwise mind their own business and stay out of CofE affairs (of course, if the CofE chooses to take decisions which impact on the rest of the Communion, they would consider that to be no more than its God-given right).
Good luck, ladies and gents.