Primates 'are the logical centre of authority'

From the Friday, August 24, 2007 issue of the Church of England Newspaper


THE PRIMATES are not an Anglican Curia but are the logical centre of
authority for the Communion in difficult times, South American Presiding
Bishop Gregory Venables (pictured) has said.

"Common sense and biblical concepts would say the Primates are at that
highest level of authority, under the presidency of the Archbishop of
Canterbury by tradition" within the Anglican Communion, Bishop Venables said
at a press conference on July 31 at St Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford,
Texas, at the close of the Anglican Communion Network council meeting.

"We are an episcopal church," he noted. "Bishops have authority within their
dioceses, the House of Bishops is very significant within a Province, a
Presiding Bishop or Archbishop has authority within a Province," but, he
added, the difficulty is "that nobody has ever said what happens after
that."

"We've got authority, we've got structure, we've got canons, we've got
rules, up until that level," Bishop Venables said.

"Because we don't have written rules, you can say what you like about the
Primates authority without fear of contradiction. That is the problem and "I
don't see the Anglican Communion finding a place to solve that problem" at
the present time.

However, the majority of Anglicans believe "we are an Episcopal Church and
expect our church to be overseen by the episcopacy in the Anglican way,
expecting the church to be led by those so set apart."

Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker told the gathering the Primates' enhanced
authority arose from the actions of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. Resolution
III.6 he noted gave the Primates Meeting the authority to intervene in cases
of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within
provinces.

Bishop Venables observed that what lay behind this problem was that the
"primates are very clear about what they think."

"There is some confusion when the rubber hits the road on this issue," that
appeared to be fuelled by objections to what the Primates were saying.

"People are still living in a 1960s post-modern dream," he noted. "In my
youth, I really thought that
songs like Strawberry Fields meant a great deal, but as I grew older I
realised it had a number of interesting concepts but really didn't work," he
said.

The Communion must "keep the Biblical concept that truth means reality" and
structure its mission and ministry accordingly, he said