ENS reports: Episcopalians removed from Anglican Communion’s ecumenical dialogues
Jan Butter, communications director for the Anglican Communion, confirmed that the membership change applies to all ecumenical dialogues.
Butter told ENS that the Anglican Communion’s secretary general, in consultation with the archbishop of Canterbury, appoints members to the ecumenical commissions and to IASCUFO. “He therefore can ask people to stand down,” he said.
Episcopal Church members who were serving on the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue are the Rev. Thomas Ferguson, the Episcopal Church’s interim deputy for ecumenical and interreligious relations, and Assistant Bishop William Gregg of North Carolina.
Bishop C. Franklin Brookhart of Montana had been a member of the Anglican-Methodist International Commission for Unity in Mission and the Very Rev. William H. Petersen, professor of ecclesiastical and ecumenical history of Bexley Hall, Columbus, was serving on the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission.
The Rev. Katherine Grieb, an Episcopal priest and professor of New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, was the IASCUFO member who has been invited to serve as a consultant.
Kearon said he has also written to Archbishop Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church of Canada “to ask whether its General Synod or House of Bishops has formally adopted policies that breach the second moratorium in the Windsor Report, authorizing public rites of same-sex blessing,” and to Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, “asking him for clarification as to the current state of his interventions into other provinces.”
Some dioceses in the Canadian church have made provisions for blessing same-gender unions and Venables has offered oversight to conservative members of parishes and dioceses breaking away from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
No mention was made in Kearon’s letter of ecumenical commission members from other provinces — such as Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda – that are currently involved in cross-border interventions in the United States.
Another document which surfaced today is a set of talking points from the Office of Public Affairs of the Episcopal Church. There is a copy of this, with some additional notes, at Episcopal Café.
There is now an official website copy over here.
There is a significant shift here,
Kearon and the ACO has been resisting the Lambeth machine on all fronts. Lambeth had made a failed takeover of the ACO and Kearon and his staff were much more concerned to see a better balance in the pursuit of intruding provinces. There seems to have been something of a capitulation ………
Katherine Grieb, stay home. Episcopalians are not paying to send you to England as a consultant.
If this keeps up we won’t pay to send anyone to England for any reason. We’ve got better uses for the money.
Dear Presiding Bishop Venables of the Province of the Southern Cone…please explain yourself regarding ¨border crossing¨ activities in BRAZIL!
Mil Gracias
These actions by those acting on behalf of The Archbishop of Canterbury, are deplorable and patently unfair. This will come back to haunt them. It closely mirrors the hit and run tactics applied by Vatican bureaucrats and papal hacks against progressive Catholic theologians such as Hans Kung in my own branch of the Holy Catholic Church. The People of God, be they Roman Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox are sick and tired of these bold hierarchical power plays and we are not going to sit quietly in the pews and take these offensive and unethical maneuvers by monarchical and imperialistic minded… Read more »
Oh for goodness sake. I hope we in fact show up at these meetings and not leave unless physically removed.
But I expect we will not do that.
Maybe that would be seen as provocative.
Border crossing and attempted property theft I guess don’t count with the ABC.
How would he like it if the various rump groups decided to take over, oh, Winchester Cathedral?
This is disgusting.
We in TEC need to keep in mind why all of this is happening. We are being relegated to observer status in the Communion because we have acted “formally” to include LGBT persons in all orders of ministry in our Church. No other matter is at contention. We have done so in a climate of ever-increasing hatred and oppression of LGBT persons in the provinces of the Communion, a good deal of it funded and taught by American and British right wing Christians. We have no cause to feel very sad or sorry for ourselves. Our present rejection and, to… Read more »
If this is considered by the Anglican Communion Office as an ‘attempt to keep the Communion together’, one might ask ‘What Communion?’ Already, the Anglican Church of Nigeria has removed any reference to Lambeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury from its official Statutes – so they cannot be considered to be ‘part of the Communion’. And that was a matter of their choice – not that of Canterbury or Lambeth. The Global South Provinces have already distanced themselves from Lambeth by their refusal to attend the last Conference and by setting up their own organisation – which has already accepted… Read more »
A fair and moderate response. Thanks Karen.
Quite thoughtful and helpful.
Now, how should we respond – bearing in mind the response should be proportionate and clear ?
Reading the talking points, I suppose that it is unlikely that the Episcopalians will embrace the proposed Covenant at their general synod in 2012. The Covenant seems designed to give them second tier status. Rejecting the Covenant might give them still lower status, but at least they won’t have betrayed their principles.
“We in TEC need to keep in mind why all of this is happening. We are being relegated to observer status in the Communion because we have acted “formally” to include LGBT persons in all orders of ministry in our Church. No other matter is at contention. We have done so in a climate of ever-increasing hatred and oppression of LGBT persons in the provinces of the Communion, a good deal of it funded and taught by American and British right wing Christians.” This is also true of the Roman Catholic Church, at least as far as its bishops are… Read more »
The action of Kearon and his cohorts are a disgrace to the Anglican Communion.As a priest of many years I feel sick in the very pit of my stomach. This week the Presiding Bishop of the USA is a guest at the Provincial Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church. May it be a time of bulding on the bonds that already exist, and if this means distancing themselves from Canterbury so be it. With our Canadian and American bretheren, together with our bretheren of the Poorvo churches we can together follow the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit, and welcome… Read more »
This is a bit of an Alice in Wonderland situation. Certain leaders are excluding other Anglicans from full participation because those members advocate full participation and inclusion. But even in those leaders’ provinces and churches there are countless christians who are far more inclusive, and who in their hearts are very happy to remain in full communion withe a fully participating Episcopal Church in the US. In other words, by acting to exclude or place in the margins, what this actually sets off is a worldwide affirmation of communion, which nothing can really stop. We are, with all our differences,… Read more »
In the future, I am certain, a progressive person will be elected Bishop of Rome, hopefully it will someday be a woman, but a progressive will slip through as has always happened at crucial times in the two thousand year history of the Latin Rite Churches. This will automatically bring about ecumenical dialogue withe the American Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada. It may bring that long awaited move to full intercommunion with these wonderful national churches. This day will come and the people who are involved with this right wing agenda in the Anglican Communion will have… Read more »
In the end, Episcopalians may be the only members asked to step down from the committees. I may be wrong, but I sense an underlying motive by the ACO to isolate TEC as the single trouble-maker. We are the major thorn in the side of the ABC. It could be that the Anglican Church of Canada is seen as manageable.
With apologies, I decided *not* to do the facebook thing – overtired after working 3 night shifts and didn’t pray it through. I just don’t think it’s my place to do these kind of things. Maybe others will think of ways the informal relationships between inclusive anglicans could work and grow. I just hope, as Christians, we can try to live in love with one another. In eternity we are in communion with one another, in the household of God. That is the eternal reality. We are one in Christ. I just can’t really understand the case for excluding one… Read more »
I would like to know how much money of my parish’s assessment floats up to Anglican Communion shenanigans–and then lobby to cut that off. If every Episcopalian refused to contribute to the organizations that want our money but not us, we would have more to help the displaced in Haiti, the tornado-affected in Oklahoma, and the threatened in Arizona. I am sick of having our money used against us.
Just as the Anglican Churches of various countries do not seem to be in communion with one another, I would also point out the same split over similar issues has divided the Roman Catholic Church for the past half century. There are two Roman Catholic Churches in parallel universes. There are also deep divisions in Orthodox churches from various countries and there are many splits between the many Protestant communities, so many that it would require a list so long it would not fit in this thread. So, we are a firmly divided Body of Christ and the best we… Read more »
Susannah you have every right to open up as you think fit a page in facebook for those in communion and support of the American Episcopal church. You could well find you would need not a page , but a bible to contain all our signatures.
Go for it girl in the name of Christ.
Fr John (Scotland)
I also am one who thinks the duly appointed TEC representatives should simply show up for these various Anglican groups as usual. If the TEC presence is so disagreeable — Auggh! They have gay cooties! They’re free thinkers! — then the heads of those groups can bodily toss out the representatives. But, Episcopalians can be too polite for our own good, so I fear we simply won’t show. Which would be a big mistake, in my opinion. I like the idea of not contributing funds to an Anglican authority that doesn’t approve of us, but I have to wonder whether… Read more »
Re: Mimi’s comment. I’ve suspected for some time that the Lambeth strategy is to isolate TEC. If TEC can be made the scapegoat it may be possible for the Covenant to be saved. But if the other more liberal provinces line up in solidarity with TEC, the game is up. The episcopal visitors’ comments at the last Canadian House of Bishops meeting about how much more like the UK Canada is than the US, for example, seemed to me to be a transparent attempt to keep Canada on side with Lambeth. If Canada can be kept on side, then the… Read more »
Even a patent delusion can take on the texture of reality if too many people agree to it’s rules. This has been the case during Rowan’s reign for the AC, which suddenly has – and just as suddenly seems to have *always had* – authority, importance and spiritual gravitas it never had before. Why? Because Rowan made pronouncements and people acted in accord with the reality Rowan has presented as fact – in essence, those in the AC with the most to lose from doing so, have acted as their own Winston Smith, cutting out what Big Brother says is… Read more »