Updated again Tuesday evening
The official summary is at General Synod – Summary of Business Conducted on Monday 9th February 2009 PM.
This includes links to audio recordings of all the sessions. (When I tried, only one of them was working properly. Dave Walker had a similar problem with the live feed.)
There is also a link to the text of the speech by Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor. The press release from his office about this speech is here.
The Questions session is pretty difficult to understand on the audio, as the Questions, which are submitted in advance, and are available to everybody on the floor as a printed document, are not read out. It’s unclear why this document is not routinely made available beforehand on the web. The prepared Answers, which are read out, are not available in written form to those on the floor, but are available to the Press Gallery!
As the summary linked above says
46 written questions were submitted by members of the Synod. The text of these questions, alongside the written responses, will be available here within the next week.
For more colourful reporting of the afternoon, try some of these:
Ruth Gledhill General Synod Feb 2009: Day One and Times Online Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor: All churches “impoverished” by Anglican divisions
Martin Beckford Telegraph General Synod Day 1: Key Church of England meeting starts with debate on Catholic church and Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor calls on Anglicans to work with Roman Catholics against secular society.
Also George Pitcher Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor: United we stand and Damian Thompson Cardinal’s General Synod speech uses the loaded phrase ‘Ecclesial Community’ – meaning ‘not a Church’
BBC Cardinal ‘regrets’ CofE divisions
Justin Brett So what do you actually do at Synod, then?
Andrew Brown Is the Church of England together enough to split?
Tuesday updates
Comment is free Giles Fraser A week of terrible headlines
Unfortunately, during this synod, the Christian spirit is likely to be overshadowed by infighting and obscurantism…
Guardian Riazat Butt Calls for ecclesial unity amid homosexuality row (scroll down for this)
The Diocese of Lichfield has reports of two items in Questions, here, and here.
Depressing piece by Andrew Brown. Depressing because such attitudes are widespread. But they’re also, I believe, profoundly wrong. Disagreements of the kind that beset the C of E and the Anglican Communion are absolutely inevitable and indeed occur in just the same way (though admittedly less loudly) in other Christian denominations. We need to keep trumpeting that good old unity-in-diversity line and to keep insisting that it is a virtue. And forget about official Catholicism. Too few C of E people have self-respect.
Lots of belligerent Catholic sectarianism on the combox to Damian Thompson’s piece. Benedict XVI seems to receive vocal support only from such wacky quarters. Anglicans do well to ignore this new virulence of sectarian measles and to go on building church in the midst of modern society, with its real problems and real promise.
“The Anglo-Catholic opponents of women priests have dreamed of this moment for 20 years. The rumours that they will be received as a body, under their present leaders, have been around for at least that long. But the question is whether they are inside the Church of England now in any meaningful sense. Their leaders do not regard themselves as being in communion with women priests – of course – but neither do they regard themselves as being in communion with bishops who will ordain women, and that includes the Archbishop of Canterbury” – Andrew Brown – Andrew Brown, to… Read more »
I can’t be the only one here to be sustained and emboldened by ‘Spirit”s support. Many thanks.
Fr Ron Smith appears to led by the spirit of the age rather than the Holy Spirit, given what he has said. It’s not just Anglo-Catholics, but Conservative Evangelicals too – are they too bound and awestruck whenever the Pope opens his mouth? No. They are Bible-believing Christians. It’s either ignorant or blasé to call it misogyny, showing a lack of understanding or consideration for the issue. Please please please, particularly with your reverent attributes and titleage, think about what you have written concerning your fellow believers.