The Church of Ireland Gazette had this editorial comment: A Consultative Fellowship. It begins:
In their Alexandria communiqué, the primates indicated that successive Lambeth Conferences had urged them “to assume an enhanced responsibility for the life of the Communion”, referring to Lambeth Conference resolutions from the 1978, 1988 and 1998 meetings.
However, the relevant resolutions of Lambeth 1978 (Nos. 11 and 12) do not use the term “enhanced responsibility” at all; they advise member Churches of the Communion to consult with a Lambeth Conference or the primates on issues of concern to the whole Communion and request the primates to study Anglican authority and the best way to co-ordinate inter-Anglican meetings…
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church wrote about the meeting at Episcopal Life Online: Varied Understandings. One excerpt:
…The striking thing was that the meeting room where the primates’ deliberations took place, the hotel’s largest and principal conference room, was bedecked with several large paintings of half-naked women. It was a space that, in normal circumstances, apparently was used only by men. I found it striking that public expectations of women are modest dress and covering, yet there is evidently a rather different attitude toward men’s entertainment…
In this week’s Church Times Pat Ashworth has reported on the letter from Archbishop Peter Akinola that was reported earlier here. See Primates trivialised problem — Akinola.
All of Bishop Katharine’s essay is well worth reading. She GETS it!
During the interminable long mid-western winter, I have been wasting time watching old television re-runs of a horrible campy sci-fi series popular in the U.S. of late 1960’s, “Lost in Space” which hearkens back to my first childhood. It is astonishing and outright breathtaking to see how the females of this continuously marooned family inter-react, as the “girls” (3) know their place in the gardening, cooking, and staying back on the wrecked spaceship, while the “guys” get tough and go ‘exploring’.
Definately a male supremacy thing.
“THE Archbishop of Nigeria, the Most Revd Peter Akinola, has dismissed the Primates’ Meeting in Alexandria this month as having “trivialised” the situation” – article, ‘Church Times’ –
And, so obviouisly, Archibshop Akinola did not -‘get it’ – not what HE wanted, anyway. (we are not allowed Alleluias in Lent – otherwise….)
Re ++KJS’s observation: it’s apparently going to take a little more time, for the Purple-Shirted Old Boys Club to realize that they are NOT just boys anymore!
The Gazette catches the ACO spin machine out, again. Even though Lambeth Conferences did make such requests the experiment we have had with “rule by Primatial Communique” over the past few years has been a disaster. Indeed the problems have been exacerbated by Primates and some caused by them – their intriguing has been an open scandal. No wonder then the last Lambeth Conference found the experiment to be largely dissatisfying, and the Primates got the thumbs down. The question to be asked then is: “Can this lot sort themselves out and act in an appropriate way and even if… Read more »
“There is a slippery slope here, and it is important that the Primates’ Meeting should remain essentially for the purposes of consultative fellowship. The Anglican Communion should avoid a formal College of Primates. – Leader in the Church of Ireland Gazette – Perhaps, in its special relationship to the C.of E. and other Churches in the Anglican Communion, the Church of Ireland is able to give a more objective view of the Statement of Intent that came from the Alexandra Meeting of the Primates. In the above staement from the C.of I. Gazette, the writer enunciates what is probably a… Read more »
“Definately a male supremacy thing.” As an aside, my neighbour was listening to her daughter and friends playing house a few years ago. There was an initial debate over who would be Mommy and who would be Daddy. Others had already chosen their places, so it was up to two boys to decide on the parent roles. After much heated discussion, in which neither boy would agree to be “Mommy”, it was decided that the play family would have two Daddies! Girl cooties are obviously worse than gay ones! At least till we grow up. “..Canadian Churches’ understanding of their… Read more »
Ford, I suppose I was speaking, rather, of the US and Canadian Churches’ leading the way in Anglicanism for recognising the rights of the LGBT community -as regards their membership of the Church, and being accepted by the Church. It is in this context that I believe TEC and the A.C.of C. have been – to some degree – prophetic. I think you will agree, Ford, that no other Churches in the Anglican Communion have yet come to any substantial agreement on the propriety of Same Sex Blessings? This is why many of us in other parts of the Communion… Read more »
“One cannot be “prophetic” about some thing that happened a good while ago.”
Can’t one? Think Maccabees and the statue of Zeus in the Temple, the “bdélugma of destruction” put up by the Hellenist King of Syria ;=)