Thinking Anglicans

ECUSA HoB: more information and views

on Thursday, 20 January 2005 at 11.28 pm by Simon Sarmiento
categorised as ECUSA

Addition
Here is a report, from The Living Church via titusonenine Special Meeting of Bishops Only a Beginning which includes the following:

In requesting a point of personal privilege to announce that he would be moving to the adjacent hallway to collect signatures for a statement pledging full support for the recommendations of the Windsor Report, the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr., Bishop of South Carolina, closed out the special House of Bishops meeting in Salt Lake City Jan. 12-13 in much the way it began: with two somewhat different agendas in evidence.

Bishop Salmon – who emphasized that he will continue to attend future House of Bishops meetings and, while there, reveal his intentions forthrightly to his colleagues – did not stay to vote for the final version of “A Word to the Church From the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.”
Before the bishops had returned to their respective dioceses, Bishop Salmon had the signatures of 20 colleagues on “A Statement of Acceptance of and Submission to the Windsor Report 2004.”

“I don’t think we are going to get anywhere if we don’t take the Windsor Report seriously,” Bishop Salmon said. “The response of the House of Bishops did not rise to the level expected by the Communion. We heard a call for submission, and we who are unequivocally prepared to submit have responded accordingly.”
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First, ENS has published a report of the Utah meeting: Bishops sign supplemental statement following ‘Word to the Church’. This includes an interview with Bishop Edward Salmon of the Diocese of South Carolina:

Yet the group of 21 bishops agreed that the response “didn’t go far enough, and that the Windsor Report asked us to deal with three issues directly,” South Carolina Bishop Edward L. Salmon Jr. told ENS in a January 19 telephone interview. He said the supplemental statement — which was neither received nor regarded by the House of Bishops as a minority report — was not intended as an “in-your-face response” but rather as an honest assessment of views shared by the signatories. “What we wanted people to hear is that the bishops who signed this statement were willing to respond to the requests of the Windsor Report.”

Salmon said the bishops engaged in “some very frank discussion” with each other during the meeting, which spanned 11 hours and was closed to visitors and the media. The South Carolina bishop, whose regular attendance and participation at House of Bishops meetings throughout the 15 years of his episcopate has been praised by his peers, emphasized the importance of clear conversation around issues: “I don’t think people can do business without frank discussion… I don’t think we’re ever going to get anywhere if we’re not willing to talk to each other seriously.”

Salmon said the group of 21 would have preferred the House of Bishops “to respond at the front end” of its recent meeting on matters of moratoria on ordaining additional openly gay bishops, and on blessing same-sex unions. He said that deferring this conversation to the House of Bishops’ upcoming March meeting “sends a message” to the Communion, and asked “what does that behavior mean?”

The majority of bishops voted, however, to wait for the Primates’ response before addressing the moratoria issues, and acknowledged that far-reaching decisions must be put not only to the House of Bishops, but also to the full General Convention. “Obviously, we’re not in agreement,” Salmon said.

Second, there is a report in the Denver Post of remarks by Bishop Rob O’Neill of the Diocese of Colorado: Episcopal cleric lauds apology from bishops:

In a pastoral letter this week to Colorado’s 35,000 Episcopalians, Bishop Rob O’Neill endorses what he called a “heartfelt and sincere” apology from U.S. bishops for failing to consider the global ramifications of elevating a gay bishop.

… “It is evident that the House (of Bishops) as a whole highly values the relationship of the Episcopal Church to the worldwide Anglican Communion, (and) wishes to remain within its fellowship,” O’Neill wrote.

He said in an interview he believes the apology represents “significant progress.”

But conservatives have criticized it as not going far enough.

The Rev. Ephraim Radner of Pueblo, a traditionalist, said the bishops’ meeting in Salt Lake largely put off tougher decisions, and he expressed skepticism about holding the U.S. church and the wider communion together.

Third, there has been further, lengthy criticism of the HoB statement by Andrew Goddard on the ACI website: Fruits of Repentance. In relation to the wording of the apology offered, the issue appears to be the failure of the HoB to quote WR verbatim, i.e. by not including these exact words:

“[to express its regret that] the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached”

What the bishops actually said was:

“we as the House of Bishops express our sincere regret for the pain, the hurt, and the damage caused to our Anglican bonds of affection by certain actions of our church”

A fragment of Goddard’s argument:

But is that not what the Windsor Report sought? Certainly, it is part of what it sought and that is perhaps a sign of hope. However, the gulf between the Pastoral Letter’s construal of regret and repentance and that of the Report is clear when examining the words of the key para 134, cited and accepted in the minority report. In addition to regret for consequences – which is present in the Pastoral Letter – the Report asks ECUSA “to express its regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached in the events surrounding the election and consecration of a bishop for the see of New Hampshire” (italics added). In that key phrase lies the fault-line between the vision of the Communion implicit in the Pastoral Letter and that found explicitly in the minority report and the Windsor Report.