Proposed Moratorium on Litigation Omitted from Draft Resolution

From The Living Church:

Posted on: May 7, 2009

One of the foremost items on the Anglican Consultative Council’s agenda is consideration of the final report of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG). During a May 6 press briefing, the Rt. Rev. Gregory Cameron, Bishop of St. Asaph (Wales) and former deputy secretary general of the ACC, said he did not know why a fourth moratorium—on litigation—had been noted in the WCG’s final report but was omitted from the draft resolution of nine recommendations proposed by the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and primates (JSC) for approval by the ACC.

The WCG was set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2007 to advise him on the implementation of the recommendations of the Windsor Report, how best to carry forward the Windsor Process in the life of the Communion, and to consult on the “unfinished business” of the report. The ACC will be discussing the WCG report and considering a resolution about it on May 8.

ACC representatives approved a series of resolutions on May 5, including one from the International Anglican Women’s Network (IAWN) that “requests that appointments to all inter-Anglican standing commissions, and all other inter-Anglican committees, design groups, or appointed bodies … provide equal representation of women on each body.”

The resolve calling for equal representation on all Communion bodies originally was approved at the last meeting of the ACC in 2005. The resolution submitted by IAWN contained a number of other resolves, including a recommendation to implement “the principles of gender budgeting throughout the Communion, and request[ing] provinces to report on progress made to ACC-15.”

Resolutions submitted by other Anglican networks also were approved, including ones commending a recently published book on canon law “for study in every province,” urging member churches and others to be more assertive in working for peace in the Sudan, and calling on member churches to encourage their governments to sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is attending the ACC meeting in her capacity as the Western Hemisphere primate representative of the JSC. The primatial members have voice, but not vote on the ACC. She was among those who spoke on various resolutions. She informed representatives that the U.S. and Australia were “unfortunately” two of the governments which have not yet signed the U.N. statement on indigenous peoples.