[Episcopal News Service] Nine members of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council have been appointed to draft the Church’s response to the first version of an Anglican covenant.<\/p>\n
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson made the appointments as called for in Executive Council Resolution INC021, passed at the council’s June meeting in Parsippany, New Jersey.<\/p>\n
The group is charged with writing a proposed response of the Executive Council to the draft Anglican covenant for the council, to be considered at its October 2007 meeting in Dearborn, Michigan.<\/p>\n
Part of the material the members of the Covenant Response Drafting Group will consider as they work are the more than 400 comments the council received by way of a covenant study guide it published in mid-April. Although the deadline for comments based on the Council’s covenant study guide has passed, the group’s chair, Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine of the Diocese of the Virgin Islands, said responses are still coming into the General Convention office and will be considered. While the group is not actively soliciting more comment, she said “we would still be open to receiving [any additional comments].”<\/p>\n
“I am grateful to the members of the drafting group for their willingness to continue this challenging work,” Jefferts Schori said July 11. “Together we look for a thoughtful and well-reasoned response that reflects the diversity of opinion in the Episcopal Church.”<\/p>\n
Anderson said that the drafting group will also “design a process for continuing to gather input from the entire Episcopal Church to aid the Executive Council in its response to subsequent covenant drafts.”<\/p>\n
Ballentine said the drafting group members reflect “quite a cross section of our Church as represented on the Executive Council.” Because of the church’s diversity, she said, the group will do all it can to ensure that all voices are heard.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
The members of the Covenant Response Drafting Group are:
\nChair: Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine (Virgin Islands),
\nKim Byham (Newark),
\nthe Rev. Dr. Lee Alison Crawford (Vermont),
\nthe Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas (Massachusetts),
\nCanon Victoria L. Garvey (Chicago),
\nthe Rev. Canon Mark Harris (Delaware),
\nthe Rev. Winnie S. Varghese (New York),
\nTed M. Yumoto (San Joaquin) and
\nBelton T. Zeigler (Upper South Carolina).<\/p>\n