[Rowan Williams]… has been warning some of his colleagues, he said, that \u201cthe underlying issue is not going to go away.\u201d\u009d Acts and decisions by one province have an impact — and sometimes a cost — elsewhere, and it is \u201can illusion\u201d\u009d to imagine otherwise. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to be in any sense a global communion and not just the loosest possible federation of local churches, then not only do we have to ask about primacy, we have to ask about structures of responsibility.\u201d\u009d And he detects \u201ca very strong groundswell of opinion in many quarters\u201d\u009d toward that conclusion.<\/p>\n
Maybe, but the Episcopal church in the United States took no such global view when it ordained Gene Robinson to the episcopate. Indeed, the presiding bishop at the time, Frank Griswold, announced that \u201cwe thought it was a local matter.\u201d\u009d For the American Anglicans, what they have done in ordaining Robinson, according to the procedures laid down in their church\u2019s constitution, is a legitimate prophetic action in the cause of justice and human rights. They have always regarded themselves as the cutting edge of the communion, and since the foundation of their church in the wake of the American Revolution, have understood their General Convention to be juridically independent.<\/p>\n
Williams, as always, sees both sides of the question. \u201cI do accept that there are moments when people say, truth before unity. I understand why the Reformation happened, why in the 1930s the German church divided so violently, where the only unity that could have survived the acceptance of Hitler\u2019s racial laws was a unity which absolutely undermined the integrity of the church.\u201d\u009d He commented: \u201cClearly some people in the United States have seen this as that sort of moment. I don\u2019t.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n