Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Cono Sur [formerly Southern Cone]

Two clear messages have gone out from Dublin.

First, the authorities in Dublin Diocese were happy to showcase TEC despite its promotion of same-sex marriage. They have hammered in a wedge that may split our Church in two.

Second, the Primates' meeting may have finally demolished the proposed Anglican Covenant, section 4.1.1 of which describes a Communion of national Churches "in which each recognises in the others the bonds of a common loyalty to Christ expressed through a common faith and order, a shared inheritance in worship, life and mission, and a readiness to live in an interdependent life".

TEC's breaches of that common faith and order are one thing; the failure of the Primates' meeting to address them is quite another....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Covenant • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Church of Ireland • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Los Angeles • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings

Four outside facilitators led the primates in their indaba-style discussions: Stephen Lyon, Church of England Partnership for World Mission secretary and administrator of the ACO's Bible in the Life of the Church project; Alice Mogwe, director of DITSHWANELO - the Botswana Centre for Human Rights; Dr. Cecilia Clegg, a Roman Catholic nun and an expert in reconciliation and conflict transformation who teaches at the University of Edinburgh; and the Rev. Canon Justin Welby, dean of Liverpool Cathedral and one of the Pastoral Visitors appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. All have extensive experience in facilitation and mediation, according to Anglican Communion Office spokesperson, Jan Butter. Mogwe and Clegg both participated in the Continuing Indaba Project as facilitators for one of the planning pilot conversations last year.

In addition to the four facilitators, a team of 15 "organizers", most coming from the Anglican Communion Office, managed the tightly controlled meeting of 23 primates....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE)

What then shall we do? The most immediate answer is to provide an alternative to the shallow account of the Christian Gospel and the nature and mission of church now proposed by the liberal rump. As the Windsor Report suggests, a robust account of “communion” will go a long way toward meeting that goal. Nevertheless, such an account will not appear apart from work yet to be done. If not done, the politics of compromise and deal making will take over the dissidents as it has their progressive opponents. In that case, the counter example of what it is to be the Anglican Communion will not appear, and we will be left with only fragments.

This is the moment the Global South has asked and waited for. This is their time to call the Anglican Communion back to its roots in Holy Scripture and the fathers of the church. It is their time to show us what communion is all about. That effort will require of all of us not only great theological effort but also all the graces Paul places at the foundation of Christian unity—lowliness, meekness, patience, forbearance in love, eagerness for unity along with kindness, tenderheartedness and forgiveness. Much will be asked of everyone, but it is these, my brothers and sisters in the Global South, who, in our time, will bear the heat of battle. Those of us in provinces controlled by the liberal rump of what once was our communion, though we may help in this enterprise if asked, now in large measure are called upon to wait, watch and pray rather than control. One thing we should wait, watch and pray for is a rigorous account of what it means when Anglicans claim to be a communion of churches. We understand that meetings are now being planned within the Global South to arrive at ways to move forward despite the terrible divisions we face. I pray that a meeting soon will take place. I pray also that it will appoint a body from throughout the Communion to forge a common vision of what the Anglican Communion is called to be. Finally, I pray that those who now resist the direction manifest in Dublin will prayerfully move forward and embrace a Communion ecclesiology that gives glory to God, who has so richly blessed the missionary extension of the Gospel throughout the world. This should be a time of fresh hope in that same Gospel and its Lord.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Global South Churches & Primates

[Anglican TV] ATV: What’s the most important issue going on in the Anglican Communion today?

[Greg Venables] GV: The vast majority of Anglican leaders worldwide, together with Anglicans in general, want to get on with preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ: the fact that there is a message of hope, and love and forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ.

But we’ve hit a problem. And the problem is that within what we call the Anglican Communion there is a significant group, which unfortunately seems to dominate much of the public life of our church, which is suppressing the truth.

The reason why we feel this urgency is because it is clearer than ever, even within our own Church, that we are under the wrath of God. Now that is not something that people like to talk about very much, and it’s not a very pleasant subject, but it is an important one.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Cono Sur [formerly Southern Cone] • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • Global South Churches & Primates • Instruments of Unity • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • Windsor Report / Process

A spokesman for Archbishop Okoh said this week’s visit will be his first to London since his election as primate. A trip set for December 2010 was postponed due to inclement weather. The trip will also provide an opportunity for Dr. Rowan Williams to mend fences with the Nigerian Church, which along with a majority of the African church has become estranged from Lambeth over the past three years.

Regaining the trust of the estranged members of the Anglican Communion would be a “long task” and would be “difficult”, Dr. Williams said at the closing press conference of the Dublin primates meeting last month. However, that is the “task we’ve been given, it’s part of the gift of living in the Church” and “part of the cross we carry.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Church of Nigeria

Given these shortcomings, it’s hard to see how the Dublin document advances even “honest conversation,” much less “our common life in Christ” (46-47). We will all have to do better.

1. With a full 15 of their membership missing in action, many for reasons of conscience, that the Dublin primates saw fit to produce any document at all on “the purpose and scope of the Primates’ Meeting” appears presumptuous and imprudent. In the current climate of broken trust, it was bound to be approached suspiciously. For what commonly accepted criteria of Christian decision-making were used, shorn of party prejudice? And if it is pointed out that the document lacks theological conviction as well as continuity with the recent past, this only creates other problems. Why publish such a thing, when the chances are small that the text, even as a non-committal working document, will be received by a future, restored Primates’ Meeting?

2. “No meeting can allow itself to be shaped wholly by the people who are not there,” said Archbishop Williams afterward, a sound general principle. Given the deep divisions within Anglicanism, however, which the several instruments of the Communion have proven increasingly unable even to address directly, much less resolve, it may have been better to call off the Dublin meeting altogether, as Canterbury reportedly contemplated at one point: refuse to press on with business as usual, in favor of an intervention or course correction. One hears an impatience in the archbishop’s statement that “two thirds of the Communion at least wish to meet and wish to continue the conversations they have begun.” Who will take responsibility for the whole by speaking publicly and candidly about the way forward and how we will get there? The archbishop himself has done so before and must do so again, as a “focus and means of unity” for the Communion (Anglican Covenant, 3.1.4)....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Global South Churches & Primates • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • Windsor Report / Process • * Theology • Ecclesiology

(Please note the piece to which Dr. Turner is responding may be found here).

Bagshaw envisions regional groupings of autonomous provinces committed to ongoing conversation and where possible cooperation. These groupings need not, however, be committed to mutually recognized forms of belief and practice. In his future, there need no longer be “eagerness to maintain unity in the bond of peace.” There need be only occasional meetings that might prove mutually advantageous or serve to further regional and local self-interest. What Bagshaw sketches as the future of Anglicanism more closely resembles the British Commonwealth of Nations than the body of Christ. In Bagshaw’s world adjustments to division are perfectly acceptable. As in all free trade zones, divisions simply become opportunities for regional cooperation and mutual benefit on the one hand or self-assertion on the other

I am profoundly troubled by all this first because Bagshaw’s view of an Anglican future gives the lie to all that God is up to; namely, to unite all peoples in Christ so that all people worship the one true God as God truly is. I am also troubled because the free trade zone of autonomous churches that may well lie in our future is to be ordered by centers of bureaucratic or local power rather than by Bishops whose particular charism is to maintain unity of faith, holiness of life, and peace within the church. If one thing the recent meeting in Dublin makes clear, it is that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates there assembled have abdicated the responsibility of Bishops to maintain catholic belief and practice not only within but also beyond the borders of their particular dioceses or provinces. I am troubled, in short, because Dublin spells the end of catholic order within the Anglican future he foresees. Bagshaw is quite comfortable with this eventuality. Indeed, in one place he makes the amazing statement that the discussion of the Primates present in Dublin about the differences in their roles in their various provinces was not about theology but how “to work better in the new Anglican Communion.” Just imagine a communion where theology and polity have nothing to do one with another! Bagshaw can do so with no difficulty at all. I can only say, I have a great deal of difficulty!

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • * Theology • Ecclesiology

The Canadian Primate, Archbishop Hiltz, reported afterwards that the Primates at the meeting had “endeavoured to consider, as much as we could, their perspective on the issue before us”. They were successful on at least one point: the Global South absentees had wished to signal by their absence the insignificance of the Primates’ Meeting, as long as it proved unable or unwilling to enforce earlier disciplinary measures against the Episcopal Church in the United States concerning gay bishops and same-sex unions. The Primates who were present in Dublin showed remarkable compliance, redefining the Primates’ Meeting as an essentially toothless body.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

The Anglican Communion needs to get beyond its difficulties over sexuality issues and to focus, as the Primates did at the Emmaus Centre, on much wider issues, not least the mission of the Church. While also addressing the unity of the Communion, which touches not least the proposed Anglican Covenant, the discussions at this Primates' Meeting were indeed wide-ranging.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Against this background, what is most remarkable about the Dublin meeting is that its working document on the Primates’ Meeting cites only the preliminary remarks of Archbishop [Donald] Coggan, but makes no mention whatsoever of the subsequent work done to implement those remarks by the Lambeth Conferences and the Covenant in specifying the role of the Primates’ Meeting, work that by now has been accepted by all the Instruments of Communion. As far as one can discern, this established understanding played no role at all in the deliberations at Dublin. While one might try to parse the provisions of the Dublin document to align it to greater or lesser extent with the accepted precedents, the simple fact is that those other sources were not acknowledged, were not quoted and were not even the subject of obvious paraphrase. Those meeting in Dublin staked no claim to continuity with the past, ignoring the will of the most authoritative of the Instruments of Communion—the Lambeth Conference of Bishops.

For all these reasons, the group of Primates who met in Dublin cannot be recognized as acting in accord with the accepted Communion understanding of the Primates’ Meeting as an Instrument of Communion. This Instrument thus joins the others as now being dysfunctional and lacking in communion credibility. The role of the Lambeth Conference as an Instrument of Communion is to “express episcopal collegiality worldwide.” But in 2008, when the bishops of most Anglicans “worldwide” were not present, it could not perform this function. It accomplished little of substance and is now regarded throughout much of the Communion as a symbol of futility. Similarly, the Anglican Consultative Council has been re-structured legally so that it is no longer recognizable as the Instrument defined in the Covenant or in past Anglican documents. The role of the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Instrument of Communion is to function as “a primacy of honor and respect among the college of bishops,” as “a focus and means of unity,” and the one who “gathers” the Lambeth Conference and Primates’ Meetings. Whatever may be said about the cause of the disintegration, it is incontrovertible empirically that Canterbury has been unable to perform this function over the last three years. The Communion thus finds itself with no working Instrument that has been able to perform its necessary function, follow its rules, and garner credible acceptance from the majority of the Communion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Global South Churches & Primates • Instruments of Unity • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • Windsor Report / Process • * Theology • Ecclesiology

Today, less than 8 years after the 2003 emergency Primates Meeting, 15 of the Primates are no-shows. There is loss of trust and a sense that words and efforts are meaningless - that the Episcopal Church in particular will act unilaterally against the mind of the Provincial leaders and global Anglican witness.

The Episcopal Church continues to decline, with its membership the oldest among U.S. denominations and its internal reports showing no reliable sources or patterns of growth. In an Anglican Communion of some 80 million members, only about 700,000 Episcopalians attend services on an average Sunday. The [partnered] gay bishop consecrated in 2003 downsized his diocese, spent most of his time at gay movement and media events, and recently announced his retirement after less than a decade in office.

A [partnered] lesbian bishop was consecrated, and some gay and lesbian couples have had high profile ceremonies, including a recent lesbian union worded contentiously as a variation on the Prayer Book marriage rite.

So, a small, affluent, socially homogeneous inner circle of a very small denomination indulges its fancies at the cost of a diverse, global Christian fellowship - a fellowship whose leaders hung in with misrepresentations and broken commitments while trying to maintain bonds of affection. That is, until this 2011 Anglican Primates Meeting in Dublin.

Read it all and make sure to take special note of the numbers of Primates attending.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Primates Meeting Alexandria Egypt, February 2009 • Primates Mtg Dar es Salaam, Feb 2007 • Instruments of Unity

Speaking on behalf of the GAFCON Primates of Uganda, Rwanda, West Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, and the Southern Cone — none of whom went to Dublin — Bishop Venables said that the meeting “had ignored the difficult issues that divide us.

“There was a denial of the serious­ness of the crisis facing the Communion which led to the absence of Primates representing two-thirds of the Anglican Com­munion, and there remains a com­plete lack of trust, which every day is getting worse.

“The Dublin meeting has just made things worse, as they did not deal with the reasons why people stayed away, or the causes of the divisions in the Anglican Church.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • Global South Churches & Primates

The Archbishop of Canterbury will engage in a round of shuttle diplomacy in an attempt to improve relations with the Global South primates who boycotted last week’s primates’ Meeting.

Speaking during the closing press conference at the Emmaus Centre, near Dublin, on Sunday afternoon, Dr Williams spoke of his plans to visit some of the provinces of the absent Primates, such as South-East Asia. He said that he had recently met the Archbishop of Kenya, Dr Eliud Wabukala, one of the Primates who did not attend, taking part in “a very long and detailed conversation on a variety of matters”.

Such diplomatic endeavours would be a “long task”, he said; and trying to keep the diverse Com­munion together was “difficult”; but “the task we’ve been given, it’s part of the gift of living in the Church” and “part of the cross we carry”.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

The former Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Dr. Phillip Turner of the Anglican Communion Institute told CEN he was disappointed by the reports produced by the meeting. “Here we have reports on both the function and the organization of the Primates meeting that neither locate as an aspect of ecclesiology the office and role of a primate within a communion of churches nor speak of how the meeting and its standing committee are to address a province or diocese within the communion whose actions other Provinces do not recognize as in accord with scripture.”

“These reports are theologically vacuous,” Dean Turner said. “Sadly, they only display the fact that this Instrument has become dysfunctional. It has become dysfunctional because neither the Primates as a group nor the Primate who is primus inter pares were willing and able to address the actions” of the North American churches.

The “fabric” of the communion remains torn “because of a failure in leadership,” he said, noting that the “communion as we have known it is gone.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Instruments of Unity • * Theology • Ecclesiology

For the first time in seven years, the Anglican Communion’s Primates’ Meeting has not referred directly to broken communion, the three moratoria requested by The Windsor Report (2004), or what any provinces can do to restore communion and trust.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

As he waited at London’s Heathrow International Airport to fly back to Toronto, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, spoke to Anglican Journal staff writer Marites N. Sison about the primates’ meeting, held Jan. 25 to 30 in Dublin. A total of 13 of 38 primates were absent. This included seven who boycotted the meeting to protest issues around the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of a lesbian bishop by The Episcopal Church in the U.S. last August. What follows is an excerpt of Sison’s interview with Archbishop Hiltz....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada

Anglican archbishops concluded their six-day summit in Ireland on Sunday (Jan. 30) by issuing statements on a host of international issues, including violence against women in Africa, political chaos in Egypt, and the murder of a gay rights activist in Uganda.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was among the two dozen senior bishops, or primates, gathered in Dublin who also sought to clarify their roles in governing the increasingly fractious Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

The documents posted at the close of the recent Primates' Meeting in Dublin tell the story. The takeover of the Instruments of Communion by ECUSA, aided and abetted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is now complete. Anything of substance was carefully avoided at Lambeth 2008; the proposed Covenant itself was derailed at ACC-14 in Jamaica, and then carefully defanged by the newly reorganized Standing Committee; and now the Primates' Meeting has let itself descend into irrelevance -- with the primates of the churches having most of the Anglican Communion's membership absenting themselves, and refusing to prop up the pretense of normalcy any longer....

There is not a word in any of the statements released from Dublin today about the commitment that ECUSA's House of Bishops was supposed to make, and which bishops such as +Bruno, +Shaw and the Presiding Bishop herself have so deliberately flouted ever since -- along with the General Convention of the whole Church. It is abundantly clear, based on the statements from Dublin, that the Primates who gathered there are not going to follow through with their commitments at Dromantine and Dar es Salaam. So ECUSA has prevailed, and will have its way.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Global South Churches & Primates

The absent primates do not approve of the US church’s ordination of actively gay bishops or its same-sex blessings.

Defending Bishop Orombi, Archbishop Williams, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, emphasised that, as with other relevant Anglican primates, Bishop Orombi’s position concerned “exclusion from ministry on grounds of behaviour, not orientation”.

He continued that Mr Kato had been “named in this rotten, disgraceful Ugandan publication” – the Rolling Stone newspaper in Kampala – in which “effectively, his murder had been called for.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Church of Uganda • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Uganda

More than a third of the worldwide leaders of the Anglican Church failed to attend last week’s primates’ meeting in Dublin.

The senior bishops or archbishops of all 38 provinces were invited to the six-day meeting at the Emmaus Retreat Centre in Swords, but only 24 turned up.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

The Archbishopp of Canterbury has acknowledged that there remains a “critical situation” in the Anglican Communion. He was speaking at a press conference at the close of the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Of the 38 primates who could and should be in attendance at a legitimate Primates' Meeting, we understand some 15 are absent. The GAFCON primates AND Presiding Bishop Mouneer Anis and Archbishop John Chew are among those with more important things to do than attend a meeting and be manipulated by procedural rules that Dr. Williams will dominate. More important, because Rowan Williams structures the meeting to control the primates and disempower them from taking any action that he doesn't wish, and when their photographs are taken together, the Anglican Communion Office (ACO) uses that photo to announce that all is well in Rowanland.

Many of the primates have made their reasons for being absent very clear in public and private correspondence to Dr. Williams, who is the convener. However, the Anglican Communion Office, headed by Canon Kenneth Kearon, has concocted reasons for some of them that are simply disingenuous. Most of the primates have made it clear to Dr. Williams why they are absent and why they are frustrated and disappointed in his leadership. With this fact in mind, there is a question that begs to be asked; "Is Dr. Williams competent to lead the Communion?" You would be surprised if you polled liberal revisionists and orthodox conservatives to find that many on both sides would answer NO. It is time to acknowledge before the world that the emperor has no clothes, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has no competency to lead the Communion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Global South Churches & Primates

From here (requires subscription) in an earlier [24 January] London Times story:

Speaking to The Times, Archbishop Gregory Venables, who retired in November as archbishop of the Southern Cone, but is chairman of the Primates’ Council for the GAFCON conservative group, said: “There are two main reasons a significant number are not going. “There has been no real consultative preparation. In the past, we have been given a paper five minutes before a meeting and told to discuss it. The other reason is that there has been no responsible carrying out of what was decided in the past.”

He said that the meetings, which are closed to the press, did not lend themselves to open debate, adding: “You go to these meetings and there is a kind of gagging gas in the atmosphere. It is almost like trench warfare. The gagging gas comes down, and it is as if people are unable to speak.”

This is significant in that it accords with what Bishop Mouneer Anis said; note that neither agrees with what Kenneth Kearon says about their reasons for conscientious non-participation--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Anglican Provinces • Cono Sur [formerly Southern Cone] • Global South Churches & Primates • Instruments of Unity • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • Windsor Report / Process

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams said that the outcomes of the Primates’ Meeting in Ireland had met his “chief hopes” for the week.
Speaking at a press conference Dr Williams explained that when inviting the Primates to the meeting he had indicated what things might be considered there. These included decisions about an effective Primates’ Standing Committee, reflections on primacy itself, and expectations of the Primates’ Meeting.
“My chief hope was to emerge with greater clarity and agreement about what we expect of the Primates corporately and how best we can realise our expectations,” he said.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Evident Preoccupation with Issues of Anglican Crisis: The four current emphases of IASCUFO indicate that issues arising from the Anglican crisis are dominating the group’s attention. The definition of church and the related question whether the communion is a church or a communion of churches constitute an issue that is, yes, fundamental but also a bit elementary for a group purporting to be advancing the theology of the communion as a whole. The reason is probably a pervasive of sense of crisis and disintegration. The second topic of the Anglican Covenant is obviously crisis-related, as is the third on the Instruments of Communion and their inter-relations. The first half of the fourth topic, the reception of the work of the instruments and of the ecumenical dialogues, is also crisis-related, with only the second half indicating a nod to the complex and diverse ecumenical dialogues. Ecumenism is likely to get short shrift, most unfortunate in light of Anglicans’ historic role in catalyzing ecumenical relationship and work. Theology and doctrine are likely to be marginalized altogether as managing and responding to the crisis take center stage. The Anglican crisis is full-blown, I have criticized efforts to minimize it, and it deserves the kind of attention it has been receiving. It is simply unfortunate that this conflation of commissions appears to suck all other theological and ecumenical air out of the room. The health of the communion depends partly on other kinds of work moving forward and receiving support – and it may well be that this unfortunate conflation has occurred mainly for financial reasons.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Episcopal Church (TEC)

From the ACNS preamble:

At todays press conference the panel comprised of the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, The Most Revd Bernard Ntahoturi, Archbishop of the Province of Burundi & Bishop of Matana, The Most Revd Dr John Walder Dunlop Holder, Archbishop, Church in the Province of the West Indies & Bishop of Barbados and The Most Revd David Robert Chillingworth, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church & Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane. They were welcomed by The Most Revd Alan Edwin Thomas Harper, Primate of All Ireland & Archbishop of Armagh

Dr Rowan Williams said the outcomes of the Primates Meeting had met his “Chief hopes” for the week. He explained that among other letters and statements agreed by the Primates there were two outlining the scope and purpose of the Primates Meeting and its Standing Committee. His address was followed by a question and answer session with members of the media.

Listen to it all (just over 34 minutes).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • * Culture-Watch • Media

On the final day of the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin, Primates discussed the content of final documents that had been prepared over the week. They began with reviewing the first draft of a working document on the proposed purpose and scope of the Primates’ Meeting. They then reviewed other documents—letters and statements—covering a range of international issues.

Read it all and please note that this includes a link to six different pdf's all of which need to be considered.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

You can now see this material here (see "Primates Meeting 2011" on the top left) and there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

You can now see this material here (see "Primates Meeting 2011" on the top left) and there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

You can now see this material here (see "Primates Meeting 2011" on the top left) and there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Please note that at the request of a member of the Anglican Communion Office this photo is being removed--KSH.

You can now see material related to this meeting here (see "Primates Meeting 2011" on the top left) and there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Last night there were five photographs linked here under this title:

Some Images From The 18th Primates'
Meeting Of The Anglican Communion,
Emmaus Retreat And Conference Centre,
Swords, Co Dublin.

But today they are no longer there--what happened?

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Please note that what follows is a tentative attempt to identify those in the photograph:

Back Row:
1. Burundi
The Most Revd Bernard Ntahoturi
Archbishop of the Province of Burundi & Bishop of Matana

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=2225

2. Scotland
The Most Revd David Robert Chillingworth
Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church & Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=17080

3. Korea
The Rt Revd Paul Keun-Sang Kim
Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church of Korea & Bishop of Seoul

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=18488

4. Canada
The Most Revd Frederick J Hiltz
Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada


http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=411

5. Melanesia
The Most Revd David Vunagi
Archbishop of Melanesia and bishop of Central Melanesia

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=14140

6. Central America
The Most Revd Armando Roman Guerra Soria
Primate of IARCA & Bishop of Guatemala

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=615

7. Philippines
The Rt Revd Edward Pacyaya Malecdan
Prime Bishop elect of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=6853

8. Japan
The Most Revd Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu
Primate of The Nippon Sei Ko Kai & Bishop of Hokkaido
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=3400

9. Papua New Guinea
The Most Revd Joseph Kifau Kopapa
Archbishop of Papua New Guinea & Bishop of Popondota

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=17514

10. Wales
The Most Revd Dr. Barry Cennydd Morgan
Archbishop of Wales & Bishop of Llandaff

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=727

11. South India
The Most Revd Suputhrappa Vasantha Kumar
Moderator of the Church of South India and Bishop of Karnataka Central

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=5205

12. The Episcopal Church
The Most Revd Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the USA

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=8656

13. Hong Kong
The Most Revd Paul Kwong
Archbishop of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui & Bishop of Hong Kong Island

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=5481

14. Australia
The Most Revd Phillip John Aspinall
Archbishop of Brisbane & Primate of Australia


http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=6969

15. New Zealand
The Most Revd Dr. Winston Halapua
Primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia & Bishop of Polynesia

16. West Indies
The Most Revd Dr John Walder Dunlop Holder
Archbishop, Church in the Province of the West Indies & Bishop of Barbados

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=9265

17. Pakistan
The Rt Revd Samuel Azariah
Moderator, Church of Pakistan & Bishop of Raiwind

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=815




Front row
1. Southern Africa
The Most Revd Thabo Cecil Makgoba
Archbishop of Capetown

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=15440

2. Brazil
The Most Revd Maurício José Araújo de Andrade
Primate of Brazil & Bishop of Brasilia

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=4996

3. Ireland
The Most Revd Alan Edwin Thomas Harper
Primate of All Ireland & Archbishop of Armagh

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=15488

4. England
The Most Revd Rowan Douglas Williams
Archbishop of Canterbury

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=828

5. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1492

6. England
The Most Reverend John Sentamu
Archbishop of York

http://www.archbishopofyork.org/780

7. Central Africa
The Rt Rev Albert Chama
The Dean of the Province

8. Bangladesh
The Rt Revd Paul Sishir Sarkar
Moderator, Church of Bangladesh & Bishop of Kushtia

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/biog/details.cfm?ID=16165

We shall be grateful for any amendments and corrections--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Today’s meeting moved from the work of reflecting on the exercise of primacy and the purpose and nature of the Primates’ Meeting, to considering the role, purpose and composition of the Standing Committee of the Primates. In addition to attending the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and the Standing Committee, other roles suggested for the committee by Primates included “holding” the life, vision and spirit of the meeting between the Primates’ Meetings; helping to shape their future meetings; and acting as a consultative group for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Several groups also suggested that the Primates’ Standing Committee might have an ongoing bridging role between the Primate’s Meeting and the regions from where the Primates come....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Daily briefings are being released by the Anglican Communion Office, and while these have listed a number of the issues being discussed, such as what it means to be a primate in different regions of the Communion, they have not mentioned the big questions such as what the implications of the boycott might be for the future of the Anglican Communion; or what relationship these Primates can expect with their non-attending peers.

Paul Feheley, working with the Anglican Communion Office, said that the press was not being “gagged”; but there was a desire to keep the media away “to allow the Primates the space they need” to be able to have conversations “in a way that’s free”.

Of course, the absence of most of the conservatives means that there is no occasion for the briefing and counter-briefing that has been seen at earlier encounters of the Primates.

All, then, awaits the final communiqué, planned for Sunday afternoon, which is expected to deliver the conclusions of the Primates who are present. In the mean time, I count 22 Primates in a circle, deep in discussion — visible only from afar.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

More than one third of the provinces of the Anglican Com­munion are not represented at the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin, it was confirmed on Wednesday, as the summit got under way.

An official list showed that 22 of the possible 38 Primates arrived in Dublin; 15 were absent. In addition, the Province of Central Africa, where there is currently a vacancy, is being represented by its Dean; and the Archbishop of York is also attending, to allow the Archbishop of Can­terbury to preside at the meeting.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Jeff Walton, spokesman for IRD’s Anglican Action Program, commented:

“Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has been embarrassed by so many Anglican leaders shunning yet another pre-fabricated ‘conversation’ with the Episcopal Church.

“After snubbing repeated requests from Anglican leaders not to bless same-sex unions or consecrate openly partnered homosexual bishops, Episcopal Church leaders have effectively cut themselves off from the majority of Anglicans worldwide...."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Global South Churches & Primates

While the commitment to the Communion remains strong, there is less of a tie to the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England Newspaper has learned.

The tenor of conversation among the boycotting Primates centres round the realisation that Dr Williams is unable, and apparently unwilling, to resolve the Anglican crisis. Dr Williams’ successes in persuading conservatives to go along, will not be repeated this time due to their absence. The “rump” meeting in Dublin 2011 has already been dismissed as illegitimate by some of the boycotting Primates, who represent 40 of the Communion’s 55 million active Anglicans.

Past undertakings given at the 2005, 2007 and 2009 Primates’ Meeting have not been fulfilled one Primate noted. It was not just around issues of human sexuality that action did not follow upon words, but in resolutions ranging from the appointment of an envoy to Zimbabwe to promises to mediate the Brazilian split.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Conservative primates say they are disillusioned by a lack of disciplinary action against the U.S. church, despite recommendations made at previous primates' meetings, and add that there had been a lack of consultation before the meeting.

The Anglican Communion said primates refusing to attend included those of the Indian Ocean, Jerusalem and the Middle East, Nigeria, South East Asia, the Southern Cone of Latin America, Uganda, and West Africa.

Last June, [Katharine Jefferts] Schori said that plans to discipline her church violated Anglican traditions, moving toward a centralized authority.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011 • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Global South Churches & Primates • Instruments of Unity • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • Windsor Report / Process

A little candor by those in attendance would be nice: there is a problem, and it is a major problem. Are the Primates who have gathered in Dublin facing it, or are they still pretending that everybody has “moved beyond” the resolute disrespect of TEC and The Anglican Church of Canada towards their previous commitments and the commitments of the Communion at large?

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Before the Primates attended Night Prayers, Archbishop Rowan gave a short reflection on primatial leadership using the text of Mark 10:35-45.

At the start of Wednesday morning Eucharist, Primates placed, at the foot of the altar, symbols (including photos, food, pictures and other objects) that represented the major missional challenges of their Province. This was so that these local issues are front of mind at any act of worship throughout the week.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011

Anglican leaders from around the world began their weeklong meeting on Tuesday in the Irish capital of Dublin.

Not in attendance are about a third of the 39 primates – senior bishops or archbishops – many of whom are choosing to stay away because they feel it would be a waste of time.

Just days before the Primates Meeting, Archbishop Mouneer Hanna Anis of the Middle East said he believes the global gatherings are "manipulated" and "orchestrated."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Partial Primates Meeting in Dublin 2011