In a press conference, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams would not go into detail about the proposal, saying only that “there is a very strong feeling that we need another level of structure to have a clearing house for some of these issues.” He added: “I don’t want to say anything about the detail because it’s a flag raised to see who salutes it.” He said the proposal was being discussed by bishops in their indaba groups today. “We’ll see how it flies.”
Already some questions are being raised as to whether such a commission would be equivalent to the powerful Pontifical Biblical Commission of the Roman Catholic Church, composed of cardinals who meet in Rome and whose duties include protecting and defending “the integrity of the Catholic faith” and deciding on “controversies on grave questions which may arise among Catholic scholars to ensure their proper interpretation.”
Asked how the Lambeth Conference might be able to offer such prescription since it has no authority to impose rules or prescriptions, Archbishop Williams said, “I’m looking for consent, not coercion. But unless we do have something to consent to, something which we trust to resolve our differences, we shall be (moving) further apart. It’s not as if we can just co-exist without any impact on one another.”
“there is a very strong feeling that we need another level of structure to have a clearing house for some of these issues.â€
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Does this mean that the failure of three of four Instruments of Communion to satisfactorily address problemsd with maverick churches is going to be changed to success by the creation of a FIFTH Instrument of Communion?
The only Instrument of Communion that works is that of the pimates meeting in collegial synod.
Why don’t we work with what is working rather than create something new?
Why don’t we resolve these issues at the level of the primates?