The Living Church: Archbishop Outlines Lambeth Goals

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Asked how the conference would address the issue of homosexuality, Archbishop Williams said one day on the schedule was reserved to consider “sexuality questions as they affect the ministry of bishops,” including a report on the listening process from the Rev. Canon Phil Groves of the Anglican Communion Office. “It [also] is inevitably going to be part of the conversations informally, day by day as people will bring to the conference what their anxieties are and what their hopes are. There will not be a resolution on this subject.”

Archbishop Williams reiterated that Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire has not been invited “and it's proving extremely difficult to see under what heading he might be invited to be around.” Asked whether he had considered inviting all bishops, including CANA bishops and Bishop Robinson, Archbishop Williams said he had, but “I thought it best to stick fairly closely with what the Windsor Report recommends, that we should see this as an event for those who have accepted the general direction of the Windsor Report and haven't flown in the face of its recommendations.”

Regarding the attendance of San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield, inhibited by the Presiding Bishop earlier this month, the archbishop said he is “waiting on what comes out of the American House of Bishops’ discussion of that. It's not something I've got a position on yet. At the moment he still has an invitation.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - EpiscopalArchbishop of Canterbury Lambeth 2008Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion)Same-sex blessings

18 Comments
Posted January 25, 2008 at 12:19 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Vintner wrote:

“At the moment he still has an invitation.”

Of course JD still has an invitation.  He’s only been inhibited.  When the HOB deposes him, the ABC would then have grounds to withdraw the invitation.  To ask him to do so prematurely would be unseemly.

January 25, 12:54 pm | [comment link]
2. DonGander wrote:

Mr. Williams sounds so logical. But he is only logical if one accepts that a “church” and a “garden club” are equivilent.

January 25, 2:04 pm | [comment link]
3. SaintCyprian wrote:

“There will not be a resolution on this subject”

Is there any schedule set down in the long or the short term for actually making decisions in these matters?

January 25, 2:07 pm | [comment link]
4. Phil wrote:

I guess the waiting is already over.  The ACO has removed John-David Schofield from the entire Communion, as Fr. Jake points out:

[Schofield] is certainly not the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. Oh, and by the way, that is not just my opinion. You may want to take a look at this listing in the Provincial Directory of the Anglican Communion. Notice that the position of Bishop of San Joaquin is listed as “vacant.” There is no confusion.

Now, whose side was Rowan Williams on again?

January 25, 2:32 pm | [comment link]
5. driver8 wrote:

certainly not the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin

Good but slightly surprising to know Fr. Jake is against the dsisciplining of the Bishop. For if he is not the Bishop of an Episcopal Diocese then he can’t be disciplined by the Episcopal House of Bishops, n’est ce pas?

January 25, 2:38 pm | [comment link]
6. Cennydd wrote:

I suggest that Rowan Cantuar should tell the Anglican Communion Office to contact the Most Rev Gregory James Venables, Archbishop of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of the Americas, and tell HIM that Bishop Schofield’s name has been “removed from the listing in the Provincial Directory of the Anglican Communion.”  I’m sure that he would have something to say about that! 

Somebody has a lot of explaining to do!

January 25, 3:12 pm | [comment link]
7. phil swain wrote:

I noticed on the ACO site that Bennison (inhibited) is listed as Bishop of PA.

January 25, 3:27 pm | [comment link]
8. Vintner wrote:

Perhaps the ACO is making the distinction that Bennison did not leave TEC whereas JD (supposedly) did.

January 25, 4:22 pm | [comment link]
9. jamesw wrote:

Phil S.:  Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?  There is no way at all that the ACO can spin that as being fair, especially since Bennison was inhibited a long time before Schofield was.

January 25, 4:26 pm | [comment link]
10. phil swain wrote:

Smuggs, are you suggesting that the ACO has a rule for whether they list inhibited bishops based upon the charges for the inhibition?  Given the farcical nature of the Anglican communion perhaps they do.

January 25, 4:50 pm | [comment link]
11. Jeffersonian wrote:

Some inhibited bishops are just more equal than others, I suppose.  Either that, or the ACO knows whose checks they’ve been cashing.

January 25, 5:04 pm | [comment link]
12. anglicanhopeful wrote:

So, what Archbishop Williams is saying is that the bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson ’ . . . have accepted the general direction of the Windsor Report and haven’t flown in the face of its recommendations’ ??  I can think of 20 or so of them who would vehemently disagree with that statement.

January 25, 5:09 pm | [comment link]
13. Little Cabbage wrote:

anglicanhopeful:  great analysis!  I’d LOL if I wasn’t already in tears over the current ABC’s recent mushy behaviors!  Thanks.

January 25, 9:48 pm | [comment link]
14. Virgil in Tacoma wrote:

John-David Schofield is not a bishop in the US. The real question is when is he going to be listed in the Southern Cone?

January 26, 8:41 am | [comment link]
15. Dale Rye wrote:

Gosh, someone who says he is not a bishop in the Episcopal Church is not listed as such on the ACO website. Isn’t that odd?

As for listing as a Southern Cone bishop: Abp. Carey created the precedent that, until there is some consensus within the Communion to the contrary, its central organs will not recognize a bishop canonically resident in one province who is physically resident and exercising his ministry within another province without its consent. The contrary consensus has not yet emerged as far as I can tell. Until it does, the AMiA, CANA, and other Common Cause bishops will remain in Anglican limbo.

Thus, the non-listing isn’t the result of a liberal ACO staff gone crazy, but of them doing what they are paid to do, which is to implement policy rather than make it.

January 26, 9:20 am | [comment link]
16. Vintner wrote:

So, I guess Venables has a lot of explaining to do!

January 26, 1:11 pm | [comment link]
17. Phil wrote:

Dale, and this ABC has established the precedent that those in Gene Robinson’s “situation” are also not recognized, by the same standard that he has not been extended a Lambeth invitation.  What do you suppose the just-following-policy ACO staff has under New Hampshire - vacant?

Be more accurate, Dale - the ACO staff, which is “liberal,” is following policy, all right - ECUSA’s.

January 26, 1:14 pm | [comment link]
18. Phil wrote:

Which makes sense, by the way - he who pays the piper calls the tune.  At least, that’s the way it works in secular society.  Whether it should work that way in Canterbury’s bureaus is debatable, to say the least.

January 26, 1:15 pm | [comment link]
Registered members must log in to comment.




Next entry (above): Charlotte Allen: The Unorthodox Patriarch

Previous entry (below): Questions About Your Personal Finances? Read the Bible

Return to blog homepage

Return to Mobile view (headlines)