Updated Friday evening
ACNS announces Top Anglican legislative body Anglican Consultative Council to meet in Jamaica.
The Anglican Consultative Council, made up of lay people, clergy and bishops from the 38 Anglican Provinces of the Communion, meets in Kingston Jamaica May 1 – 13, to consider among other things, mission in the 21st century, the future structure of the worldwide Church, and theological education.
The ACC meets approximately every three years under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will give a presidential address on May 11.
Foremost on the agenda for this, the 14th meeting of the Council, will be consideration of a Covenant for the Provinces of the Anglican Communion and reception of the final report of the Windsor Continuation Process. Both of these documents are key to discerning a way forward for the Anglican Communion in light of recent stresses cause by differences over matters of human sexuality…
ENS reports Design Group works on Anglican covenant revision.
The group charged with “designing” a covenant that could be used as a unifying set of principles among the provinces of the Anglican Communion met March 30-April 3 in Cambridge, England to work on a new revision of the text.
“A completed revision of the proposed covenant has been finished, along with a commentary explaining our work,” the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, one of two Episcopal Church members on the Covenant Design Group, told ENS at the conclusion of the meeting. “We have taken seriously the array of responses received from the provinces and from around the communion and larger church.”
The latest incarnation of the Anglican covenant, along with the design group’s commentary, is expected to be “posted on the Anglican Communion website sometime next week,” said Radner…
And also ENS has Windsor process, covenant to top Anglican Consultative Council agenda.
The Windsor Continuation Group has been charged with addressing questions arising from the 2004 Windsor Report, a document that recommended ways in which the Anglican Communion can maintain unity amid diversity of opinions, especially relating to human sexuality issues and theological interpretations. Its report calls for the development of a “pastoral council” and supported Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ plan to appoint “pastoral visitors” to assist in healing and reconciliation within the communion.
The continuation group also addressed the moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate. “If a way forward is to be found and mutual trust to be re-established, it is imperative that further aggravation and acts which cause offence, misunderstanding or hostility cease,” the group’s report states. At their February meeting, the primates called for “gracious restraint” with respect to such actions.
The final report of the WCG is available here, as a PDF.
Further background material:
Maybe they should be considering Human Rights matters as well, especially in the Province of the West Indies.
Unworthy thought I am sure but who is paying for all this gallivanting around the world constructing a covenant, the object of which is ‘unite’ the church by excluding gay Christians? I hope it’s not me through my stewardship giving.
Some of us would be more interested in having Ephraim Radner explain what plans ACI has to make good on any funds that may have been channeled to it improperly from trust funds and accounts of Grace Church, Colorado Springs, should successful criminal action be taken against individuals formerly connected to that church. That, or a statement that ACI has a clean bill of health in this matter, not having received financial support from any questionable source at that church.
Talking as we were earlier about changes in headlines ……….. (only black bishop …)
I was rather astonished to see the ACC described in the email version of this story as Anglicanism’s “top legislative body” when generations of people spent so much time and bother making sure it remained “consultative”…..
Still I see the story has a different headline on the ACO website – I wonder if that has always been the case or has that too had to be changed?
Well spotted, Martin. I have amended the article to show the original headline as published.
It does suggest that somebody in the ACO has a poor grasp of history.
I am sure original headline was simply aspirational, Simon.
With the removal of Canon Jim Rosenthal from the ACO (ceremoniously dumped it seems) and the management of the ACC media circus passing to Fred Hiltz’s aide-de-camp – perhaps we are in for an interesting time.
Many human rights organizations have urged a boycott of Jamaica because of its tolerance of anti-gay violence, from beatings to murder. Crimes against gays are not prosecuted. Would someone inform the members of ACC?
I bet they would not have met in apartheid [sp?] South Africa.
Cynthia, if you think about it, there could be no more appropriate place for this bunch to meet than the most viciously homophobic nation on earth.
I hope the Archbishop of Canterbury and all of the members of the ACC attending the upcoming May meeting in Kingston, Jamaica will make themselves aware of the following:
http://friends-of-jake.blogspot.com/2009/04/guess-they-didnt-get-memo.html
A scathing State Department report on Jamaica’s treatment of homosexuals reads like a horror novel:
“The Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals, and Gays (J-FLAG) continued to report human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, harassment of homosexual patients by hospital and prison staff, and targeted shootings of homosexuals.”
I am loathe to say anything that might seem to contradict the excellent posts above, but it must be said that at a time when Anglican churches in Singapore and Nigeria have been seeking to extend the criminal law and send more and more gay people (and their friends) to prison – the Anglican Church in the Caribbean have made representations to decriminalise homosexuality.
“I hope the Archbishop of Canterbury and all of the members of the ACC attending the upcoming May meeting in Kingston, Jamaica will make themselves aware of the following:”
Me too. But for the ABC, that’s far below his capacious mind’s ability to solve global warming, the economy, etc., with windy and lofty generalizations. Those make his beard puff out and his eyebrows to wiggle fiercely.
Paying attention to antigay violence in Jamaica involves those pesky actual human beings and facts. Those don’t fluff up his rhetoric. How boring.
Martin makes an interesting point – perhaps he could tell us more about church interventions in both Jamaica and Singapore.
However, here are some further links with information about Jamaica
New York Times 24 Feb 09 Attacks Show Easygoing Jamaica Is Dire Place for Gays
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/world/americas/24jamaica.html?_r=3
Human Rights Watch 19 Feb 09 Letter to Prime Minister Golding
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/02/19/letter-prime-minister-golding
InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights 5 Dec 2008
IACHR ISSUES PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON VISIT TO JAMAICA
http://www.cidh.org/comunicados/english/2008/59.08eng.htm
And here is the US Department of State report:
2008 Human Rights Report: Jamaica issued 25 February 2009
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/wha/119165.htm
The reference above to Singapore refers to the 2007 discussions relating to minor ammendments proposed to the law on homosexuality at that time. The National Council of Churches, with a very strong Anglican element, recommended not only that homosexuality should remain criminal but that lesbianism should be criminalised for the first time. They said: “Given that section 377A PC criminalises homosexuality whether done private or publicly, we are of the view that a similar prohibition ought to be enacted in respect of lesbianism, considering that lesbianism (like homosexuality) is also abhorrent and deviant, whether consensual or not.’ “ http://www.methodistmessage.com/mar2007/penalcode.html On… Read more »
“Southern Cone
Awaiting Details” – naming of official attendees
Surprise, Surprise! Southern Cone not yet decided whether to grace the ACC Meeting with a presence?
Perhaps the Primate of that Piratical Domain is afraid of the questioning that might be addressed – as to its annexation of rebel groups in TEC and the The A.C.of C.? One wonders whether the chutzpah of this friend of the Re-asserters has at last been tuckered out – by Canterbury and Others?
OR – has all the travel money been spent on trips to Jerusalem and North America?
Dear Friends,
I am one of the organizers behind the BoycottJamaica.org project.
After reading the latest horrors for LGBT people in Jamaica, I persuaded politicians and gay bars in San Francisco to pull Myers rum and Red Stripe from the shelves.
We are in discussion with Diageo about their corp politics regarding State Dept and gay violence. Visit my site for more on the boycott in SF, and then the boycott site for background.
How can we work together and Jamaican antigay violence addressed at ACC meeeting?
Michael