From The Living Church:
Posted on: August 29, 2008
The draft report from the Windsor Continuation Group offers nothing that doesn’t already have a proven track record of failure, according to Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.
Bishop Venables spoke with a reporter from The Living Church shortly after the release of a communiqué from the GAFCON Primates’ Council. The communiqué rejects the conclusions and recommendations contained in a draft paper distributed by the six-members of the Windsor Continuation Group during the Lambeth Conference, specifically the continuation group's call for a three-fold moratorium on public blessing of same-sex unions, the consecration of partnered homosexual persons as bishops, and cross-border incursions by overseas bishops.
“There is nothing new here such as to make us hesitate from the course we are taking, given the urgency of the situations with which we are dealing and the realities already on the ground,” the statement said. Referring to a letter, written prior to the start of the council meeting by five North American Anglican bishops who serve under the authority and oversight of various individual primates on the GAFCON council, the communiqué also notes that the continuation group proposals were developed without any consultation with those most directly affected in North America.
“For the sake of the Anglican Communion this is an effort to bring order out of the chaos of the present time and to make sure as far as possible that some of the most faithful Anglican Christians are not lost to the Communion,” the communiqué stated. “It is expected that priority will be given to the possible formation of a province in North America for the Common Cause Partnership.”
The GAFCON Primates’ Council consists of seven primates who attended the June Global Anglican Future Conference and endorsed the final statement from that meeting. Bishop Venables said that five of the seven members of the GAFCON Primates’ Council met in London from Aug. 20-22. In addition to Bishop Venables they included archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Benjamin Nzmibi of Kenya and Henry Orombi of Uganda.
The communiqué notes that the twofold task of the primates’ council is "to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith." They also agreed that no signatures should appear on the final statement unless that person had been consulted and agreed to have his name included.
Although not present, Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa of Tanzania endorsed the communiqué. The seventh member of the council, Archbishop Justice Akrofi of West Africa, could not be reached and that is why his name does not appear, Bishop Venables said, adding that the commitment to the GAFCON Primates’ Council and its principles remains strong among all seven and that the group is hoping that other primates will want to be join the council.
“We see ourselves as just an initial grouping open to others,” Bishop Venables said, adding that the council believes that the Windsor Continuation Group proposals would take the Anglican Communion in the wrong direction. While skeptical that they represent anything more than attempts to delay a decisive decision, the primates’ council has not rejected either the idea of a Windsor Continuation Group or their commitment to the Windsor process, which they note has the support of a number of “esteemed colleagues from the Global South.”
The council also did not rule out endorsement of an Anglican Covenant, but said in its communiqué that as proposed, “the Anglican Covenant will take a long time to be widely accepted and may have no particular force when it does. Bishop Venables said the idea of "moratoria" has never dealt with the underlying problem, as is shown by the equivalence of cross-border care and protection with the sexual sins which have caused the problems,” Bishop Venables said.
The GAFCON primates have a number of questions they intend to ask during the next meeting of the primates, which is tentatively scheduled for early 2009. Among the issues Bishop Venables and other GAFCON primates hope are discussed are the status of the pastoral scheme that the primates proposed in the communiqué following their meeting in Tanzania last year. If that proposal is dead, he asked, who made that decision?
Bishop Venables said he and several other primates’ council members have additional concerns about the format of the primates’ meeting as proposed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in his post-Lambeth pastoral letter to bishops. The proposal to include indaba small-group discussion was a particular concern, Bishop Venables added.
“I think it is up to the primates to decide how they are going to do things,” he said. “I don’t think we can be told ahead of time what type of meeting we are going to have, or how we are going to talk.”
Steve Waring
No comments:
Post a Comment