Updated again Wednesday evening
I published a couple of cross-border intervention footnotes recently to other articles, see here, and also here. That was after the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Kenneth Kearon wrote a letter in which he indicated some doubts in this area.
Today, Episcopal Café joins the campaign for better information on this topic.
Has the Church of Nigeria formally engaged in boundary crossing? The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council do not know.
On their respective websites the Church of Nigeria and CANA openly confess that the Church of Nigeria is formally in violation of the boundary crossing moratorium…
See It’s formal: CANA is a diocese of the Church of Nigeria.
Referring to the recent Virginia court decision involving CANA/Anglican District of Virginia:
…The Virginia Supreme Court Decision said the ADV congregations lost the case because, as ADV claimed (and as you can see, still claim), they were a branch of the Church of Nigeria.
This information is offered to assist the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General in their inquiries into whether the Province of the Church of Nigeria has engaged in and continues to engage in crossing boundaries of another province of the Communion in violation of the moratorium against such intervention.
And there is this further document dated May 2010 from the ACNA website [PDF] that lists all the cross-border interventions and notes that:
During this period of transition, bishops within ACNA will retain membership in the House of Bishops of the province in which they were members prior to the formation of ACNA.
H/T to the Café and to Albany Via Media.
Update Wednesday evening
ENS reports that Communion secretary general due to attend Executive Council meeting
The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, is to speak to the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council here on June 18.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the council at its opening plenary session that Kearon would engage with the council in a question-and-answer session at 9 a.m. on the last day of the council’s June 16-18 meeting at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute.
His presence at the meeting will come 11 days after he announced that he had sent letters to five Episcopal Church members of the inter-Anglican ecumenical dialogues with the Lutheran, Methodist, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches “informing them that their membership on these dialogues has been discontinued.” Kearon also said on June 7 that he had written to the Episcopal Church member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), withdrawing her membership and inviting her to serve as a consultant to that body…
Thanks for posting this. I do indeed hope it helps clarify things for both the ABC and Kenneth Kearon. CANA, in addition to being the result of boundary violations, is still determined to alienate the property that the Diocese of Virginia holds in trust for TEC, and they are still trying to play that victim card about being ‘forced’ to resort to the law.They, of course, are the ones who initiated the lawsuits, I know I keep repeating that; I do so in hopes that if either of the gentlemen named above DO read these pages, they will know the… Read more »
They don’t know??? Pathetic!
Episcopal Cafe and Simon (and others) are confused. Don’t you get it, that this whole excercise is to exclude out, proud lgbt people and our supporters. NOBODY else is meant to be caught in Rowan’s net of dishonesty and dissembling ! Leave all those nice heterosexual Nigerians et al alone ! Don’t make the mistake of taking the Windsor Report and the ‘Listening process’ too seriously. Meanwhile gay people go on living creative ordinary lives, saying our prayers, caring for family and friends, working quietly and we will still be when the leadership of the C of E and AC… Read more »
Of course they know. The difference is that if they discipline TEC, TEC will continue to work toward remaining in the communion and because of its sense of mission will continue its work in the wider world. But Nigeria, if disciplined will just pack up and sever its relationship with Canterbury (which is already has done in its official constitution) and the communion will be broken.. not by those who support the GLBT community but by those who have breached the moratorium on cross border interference. The ABC doesn’t want it said that his discipline finally broke the communion. Too… Read more »
Simon, I’d prefer to think we’ve been with you from the start in the campaign for better information. (smile – though friendly competition is to the good!) Under update 10 of our June 10 post we were underscoring that CANA is still saying it is a missionary diocese of the Church of Nigeria.
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/dioceses/diocese_of_virginia_prevails_u.html
Your post about the Diocese of Western Anglicans (second here-link above) is something I’ll add to our “It’s formal” post. Thanks.
“They don’t know???”
Kenneth Kearon seems hazy about boundary crossings in his letter – oblivious maybe. I don’t know about the ABC, but I do know that in the past he’s had several fairly excessive meetiings with the former Bishop of Pittsburgh. I don’t think he’s met with him since he became an “archbishop,” however.
What does TRUTH matter at the Anglican Communion which is currently honesty challenged by +Rowan Williams leadership–a man who has repeatedly shown himself capable of being unable to determine honorable fact from deadly wrongdoing at The Body of Christ?
Everyone with more than two functioning neurons knows that Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda all engaged in cross-border invasions.
The point of this process is not to discern who is guilty but to engineer an outcome which will enable Pope Rowan I to push only TEC out.
(I wonder if the Duncanites will be able to pony up a third of the AC’s budget.)
Yes, of those four, Nigeria and Rwanda (who started many years earlier) are undoubtedly still continuing to do so today.
As for Uganda and Kenya, it is claimed that they have relinquished their clergy and congregations to ACNA. Which is a body not recognised by the Archbishop and the Secretary General as a part of the Anglican Communion.
But in all four cases I believe that it is clear that the actions at the time were formally approved by the structures of the provinces concerned.
The point is that ++Rowan is bowing to blackmail. He knows he can victimize the U.S. and Canada, who will stay put, but doesn’t want to lose the former “colonials” and be accused of First World arrogance. He has proven that threats and blackmail work.
Must agree with all the above, and in particular with Laurence Roberts. This isn’t about violating moratoria, or else TEC, along with, at least, Nigeria and Rwanda would be called all and together on the carpet simultaneously. The genie is already out of the bottle with respect to the status of women, and thus too with the ordination of women to all orders in TEC, and elsewhere. If they were to try the same sort of discipline over ordination of women, we would summarily blow them right off, and proceed as we have, without question. They have caught us up… Read more »
Rowan Williams has proven he has little backbone when it comes to standing up to those prelates who have initiated cross border interventions and attempted theft of property that never belonged them but was held in trust for various diocese within the American Episcopal Church. Many Episcopalians regard these renegade Anglican fundamentalists as thieves and liars who will stop at nothing to achieve their end goals: which are for the most part, the disenfranchisement of an entire minority glbt community. These reactionary elements actually enjoy denigrating and devaluing women and the glbt community. Rowan Williams has demonstrated such a lack… Read more »
Ah, I see.
The commentators here above all agree with the Lambeth lawyers and strategists that those on both “extremes” of this debate should have a kicking and be demoted.
I am sorry for it.
‘The commentators here above all agree with the Lambeth lawyers and strategists that those on both “extremes” of this debate should have a kicking and be demoted.’
Kicking…no. Tis hardly Christian. But would you have anybody on either extreme PROmoted?
The real test will come when the Fundamentalists in the Communion (some from within the Church of England, and some without) will seek to infiltrate the Church of England. It is to be expected that only then will the English Church take notice of what has been going on in the furthermost reaches of the Communion. Only then will we Provinces who are ‘up with the play’ be invited to ‘come back to Mother’. If there then will be any ‘Mother’ to come back to! In the meantime, TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada, and other enlightened Anglicans will carry… Read more »
Hmmm. Let’s think about this bit of Through the Looking Glass mindsets.
The Lambeth Curia don’t know if Nigeria has engaged in border-crossing.
They also don’t know if Rwanda,and Uganda, and Kenya have engaged in border-crossing.
By that logic I would expect them to say they don’t know if Pol Pot or Idi Amin really were such murderous thugs; they might have been, but the Lambeth Curia certainly don’t know that.
“The commentators here above all agree with the Lambeth lawyers and strategists that those on both “extremes” of this debate should have a kicking and be demoted.” – Martin Rynolds Martin, no, I don’t believe that is the approach at all. What I feel that most of us are trying to do is to point out the incredible hypocrisy and lack of any ethical standards on the part of the Lambeth Curia. If we can’t get to that point of truth, then how is it possible to argue that their earlier judgment is merely inequitable. Lies accepted by Lambeth’s toadies… Read more »
Martin —
While I haven’t commented on this thread, I have never thought that anyone should be kicked out of the WWAC, as I don’t believe it to be an entity out of which one be kicked (the lengths one will go to to avoid a dangling preposition …)
I think we should all stay together & keep talking — obviously a minority opinion.
My impression was that some commentators thought it wrong that one province was apparently mediatized for one “violation”of one made up moratorium, while others have repeatedly violating another with impunity.
No, Martin, we don’t “agree with the Lambeth lawyers and strategists that those on both “extremes” of this debate should have a kicking and be demoted.”” Our post was thick with sarcasm, but perhaps this is a subject for which that is a useful communication tool. We do believe that a lie is a lie. It is transparent that boundary crossing has formally occurred. And we do believe that the ABC does not have the authority to tell people to stand down from Communion committees. Numerous posts on the Cafe demonstrate that. We were encouraged by your recent comment that… Read more »
The Archbishop of Canterbury has absolutely NO AUTHORITY to punish or remove other national Anglican Churches from the various conferences and committees. This is not only arrogant and un-Christ like behavior it is not legal. This is the same scenario that is played out daily in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and it is not working. It is a failed system that has cause the vast majority of Roman Catholics to lose all respect for the authority of their bishops. Catholics are fed up with this type of arrogance and in many cases outright cruelty. It is sad… Read more »
RW pretty much has now painted himself, roundly into his chosen corner. His failure to decide in support of the existing Big Tent Global Anglican Fellowship of autonomous churches has indeed been a decisive choice after all. RW most probably got played in his Vatican visits, as it appears in retrospect. The Windsor thing is just another part of the obvious power scenarios – pretending Windsor is wise and prayerful consensus, when in fact WR got a lot backwards, right from inception. PS. RWs snubbing of PB KJS is not going to play well, if I am right that too… Read more »
Well, you see, I am deeply disappointed at Kearon’s actions, though not at all surprised. I think it wrong headed and likely to please no one, I believe it to be contrary to the best interests of God’s Holy Church. I believe that in punishing TEC in this way Dr Williams and the ACO are contravening the spirit and letter of the Dromantine Communique – this exclusion comes for standing with gay people it is intended to diminish both TEC and us. But it is only a consequence of a well laid out process – a process I have opposed… Read more »
I omitted from the list of TEC cooperations with the “process” – Excluding Gene from Lambeth ’08….
There are more but it this was perhaps the most important.
It is reported that Canon Kearon is going to attend TEC’s Executive Council meeting.
Is he there to tell them off? Or warn them off?
Or is he there in order to try and repair bonds of affection which his ill judged and one sided interventions have damaged, probably more than he or the Archbishop of Canterbury anticipated?
Martin —
Perhaps TEC is infected with what Stanley Hauerwas identifies as the theology of the United Methodist Church, “God is nice and we should be nice, too.”
Prior Aelred – LOL! Having been brought up mostly in the Methodist church, out under the Rocky Mountain sky where people and church services and sermons were on the whole pretty nice, I do recognize that theology. But I have to add another thing I learned there and at my Methodist university during the civil rights struggle: “God is just and we should be just, too.”
When Canon Kearon attends TEC’s Executive Council meeting will he be required to provide documented proof that he is actually a legitimate Canon? Will the proof require the embossed seal of the Archbishop of Canterbury or just a plain old wax seal? Kearon should begin with an apology to the people of The Episcopal Church and the Presiding Bishop before he ever sets foot on American soil.
That would be nice, dear Prior.
The truth is probably not quite so gentle.
TEC would seem to have gone along with most things for a few years, even to the point of leaving Gene outside the fence at Lambeth while they held a Bishops meeting.
A cynic might argue that they did so to get themselves invited to Lambeth in the first place.
I do not think the ordure or forked tongue is just to be found at the ACO and Lambeth …..
Martin — You seem to think that TEC is monochromatic — I know of no church that is (probably not even governing bodies thereof). When the votes get counted at General Convention, it seems that in both houses it appears that majorities wish fully to include all members, regardless of sex, race or sexual orientation and also to remain full members of the WWAC. Pope Rowan (aka “Judas Caiphas I”) seems to be enforcing section IV of the Anglican Covenant even though it has not but adopted by a single province & thus forcing a schism (which is the entire… Read more »
I just read a new flash report on the internet that Canon Kearon’s request at today’s (June 18th, 2010) Executive Council Meeting of the Episcopal Church, was DENIED. Apparently, Canon Kearon wanted the session CLOSED to all but Council members. His request was decisively DENIED by a show of hands. He apparently tried to make it a secret session without transparency, which is very much the dysfunctional way we do things in the Roman Catholic Church. We are all about “secrets and keeping secrets” and it has made the entire Roman hierarchical system suspect, untrusted and dysfunctional. Millions of lay… Read more »
Trouble is how organised religion and its stuff can take us so far from the simplcity -is that the word ? — o0f being human…
our humanity