Why Some Primates Did not Attend the Dublin Primates Meeting

Posted by Kendall Harmon

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

7 Comments
Posted January 31, 2011 at 5:00 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. MarkP wrote:

So the suggestion is that roughly half the bishops who didn’t attend were actually boycotting but:

- they misled Canon Kearon, or
- they were too afraid/polite/something-else to correct Kearon in public, or
- they believe there’s some strategic value to a secret boycott that I’m just not seeing?

I don’t get it (but I’m trapped on this side of the Times paywall, so maybe it’s all clear there). And I don’t see how speculating over their private motivations is particularly helpful, one way or the other—if they won’t admit it, how important can it be?

January 31, 9:04 am | [comment link]
2. Ralph wrote:

“The gagging gas comes down, and it is as if people are unable to speak.”

While this certainly seems to be the case, I can’t help but wonder why the primates have allowed it to be that way.

January 31, 9:59 am | [comment link]
3. Fr. Dale wrote:

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.

I believe Archbishop Venables is offering up an important modern parable. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Rev. 2:7a).

January 31, 10:41 am | [comment link]
4. evan miller wrote:

Well, the gagging gas certainly came down in Alexandria where it seemed the Global South primates were mute and simply made nice.  There was apparently no effort to demand accountability or insist on the honoring of the agreements reached at Dar Es Salaam.

January 31, 10:53 am | [comment link]
5. cramner wrote:

4 There was apparently no effort.

From the feedback and reports every effort was made. A reason for non attendance in Dubin was the lack of follow through of what was agreed.

January 31, 11:05 am | [comment link]
6. francis wrote:

Ralph,  When you have a meeting in which 1/3 are not participating because they have been ignored and 1/3 are new and now have been manipulated into a new norm, in which the Anglican penchant for deference is observed, and a control factor of isolation (no press interaction) runs the day—gagging gas is the atmospheric norm.  Why do you think it would be any different?

January 31, 1:45 pm | [comment link]
7. cramner wrote:

And notice that nowhere have the major points made by the non attendees been addressed; ie lack of consultation in planning and follow through on decisions taken. The whole meeting ran on lines which did not come from the previous meetings.

January 31, 1:56 pm | [comment link]
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