Primates Focus on Conflicts and Crisis

From The Living Church:

Posted on: February 5, 2009

The primates of the Sudan, Bangladesh and Aotearoa/New Zealand spoke at a primates’ meeting press briefing Feb. 4, addressing the issues of global warming and conflict in the Sudan.

The bulk of the briefing was devoted to the Sudan. The Most Rev. Daniel Deng Bul Yak, Archbishop of Juba and Primate of the Sudan, spoke of the devastation wrought by the wars in Darfur and the guerrilla campaign in the south waged by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Fighting in the south and west of the country could undo the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that in 2005 ended a 21 year civil war between the Arab Muslim North and the African Christian South. Archbishop Deng gave an overview of the 4-million-member church spread across 25 dioceses, and its schools and hospitals, and urged the primates to lend their voices and the support of their churches to the call for peace in the Sudan.

Archbishop David Moxon of New Zealand and Bishop Paul Sarkar of Bangladesh gave an overview of the primates’ discussions on global warming. Bishop Sarkar spoke of the problems of arsenic pollution of ground water in Bangladesh and the difficulties caused by rising ocean levels. Archbishop Moxon briefly summarized the work Christians need do to help preserve the planet.

Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Australia said the primates also learned about coordination efforts among the Anglican Communion’s relief and development agencies. Helen Stawski, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Secretary for International Development, and John Kafwanka, Mission and Development Coordinator at the Anglican Consultative Council, briefed the primates on a meeting at Lambeth Palace in January on efforts to coordinate aid. Archbishop Aspinall said the primates discussed the need for articulating a theological rationale to support the work of the aid agencies, but said there were no plans for a “new super-Anglican” aid agency to oversee the work of the independent organizations.

On Thursday, the meeting’s final day, the primates were scheduled to discuss the Communion’s response to the global financial crisis and the forthcoming meeting of Anglican Consultative Council. Negotiations on the wording of the meeting’s final communiqué also were going down to the wire on Thursday. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was scheduled to lead a late afternoon press conference and present an agreed statement from the meeting. The report of the Windsor Continuation Group to the primates also will be released at the meeting’s conclusion.

(The Rev.) George Conger