First, Alan Wilson has commented on the Southwark Cathedral episode, see If you want to get ahead get a hat:
…This bizarre story indicates, as has been told, that unlike previous visiting female bishops from the US, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church was banned from wearing a Mitre in Southwark Cathedral. Forrest Gump’s mum used to say, stoopid is as stoopid does, and the whole mentality of such a request, if it was ever made, is profoundly stoopid. The whole thing smacks of hypocrisy. It bears the fingerprints of blind officialdom rather than the Archbishop himself.
I’m an optimist, however, and can see positive learning from such loonery:
1. The C of E has a lot of getting real and growing up to do. Seeing the problem presented in a stark form presents a good opportunity to recognise it and resolve to do better in future.
2. All God’s promises are “yes” and “amen” in Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to say yes or no. Anything else comes from the evil one. The Spirit has always called the church to a form of ministry that was real within the sociology of the world we serve. Therefore we respond to the Spirit’s call obediently, not half-heartedly. The Puritans used to talk about the “Devil’s Martyrs” — people who lost out all round, because they messed with Mr In-Between, depriving themselves of the advantages of being Puritans, or Libertines. Simply framing the Spirit’s call to ordain women in terms of the problems it raises is boring, weedy and faithless, as well as hypocritical…
Second, Maggi Dawn has commented on the archbishops’ intervention in the forthcoming General Synod debate on Women in the Episcopate. See The archbishops, evangelism and the status of women.
4 Comments…Me? I’ve never been attracted to the bullying variety of evangelism, but neither have I ever been embarrassed to talk about the claims of Christianity, or to invite other people to check it out for themselves. I am not much of an evangelist by nature, if by that you mean someone who bangs on about Christianity in the belief that I have got all the answers. My sense of wonder, my intellectual curiosity and my genuine appreciation for the human race disallows me from wanting to think I already have all the answers: how appallingly boring that would be. But Christian theology, per se, is interesting and wide ranging if you take it seriously, and don’t allow yourself to be taken in by those who insist it has no intellectual credulity.
The more pressing problem for evangelism, it seems to me, is the ongoing debacle about women in the Church, this week of all weeks. Yesterday we learned that the Archbishops seem OK with proposing a compromise on women bishops that downgrades the status of all the women in the Church. It beats me how you can put that together with an upbeat view of evangelism. They might feel fine about evangelising people into a Church that continues to give women second class status. I do not. You don’t have to go back that many decades to find a church that disallowed people from becoming priests or bishops because of the colour of their skin, or because they had a disability. Those barriers have been broken down in the name of justice, and rightly so; no-one would dare uphold such an idea now, and even if they thought it privately they wouldn’t dare to say it out loud. It seems outrageous to me that we continue to believe that it’s OK to delay indefinitely the active acceptance of women at all levels in the Church. Its patently obvious that the world at large thinks so too, and this unacceptable injustice towards women is far more of a blight on evangelism than shyness.
The new Second Church Estates Commissioner took questions in the House of Commons yesterday. The first was about women bishops.
Here is the verbatim Hansard report.
Church Commissioners
The hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked-
Women Bishops
2. Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab): What progress the Church of England has made on proposals to enable women to be consecrated as bishops. [3388]
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Tony Baldry): Before I answer that question, may I pay tribute to my predecessor, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell)? He has been the longest serving Second Church Estates Commissioner ever, and he did an excellent job. The legislation to enable women to become bishops reaches the General Synod’s equivalent of Report early next month in York. Depending on what is decided there, the legislation will then go to the 44 diocesan synods, and I understand that the earliest date that the General Synod can take a final decision, and when the matter can eventually come before the House, is 2012.
Diana R. Johnson: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new role. Does he not agree that the intervention of the two archbishops, with their proposal on the legislation to enable women to become bishops, will create a two-tier system of bishops? Women will no doubt be on the lower tier, and does that not send out completely the wrong message from the established Church of this country about the role of women bishops?
Tony Baldry: I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words at the beginning of her question. There are clear majorities in the General Synod in favour of women becoming bishops, but, as the proposals by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York yesterday demonstrated, there are still efforts to try to find ways to reconcile those who have deep-held opposition to the measure. Under legislation, it is important that the Church decides the way forward, and we should give it the space to do so. However, it is also very important that the Church hears the voices of this House about how we see those matters, because ultimately the issue will have to come back to this House.
Later there was a second question which referred to women bishops.
12 Comments7. Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con): When the responsibilities of the Second Church Estates Commissioner in respect of this House were last reviewed. [3393]
Tony Baldry: I am beginning to get to grips with the responsibilities of this post, which was established by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1850. I would say at this stage that I will try to have the same broad approach to answering questions on behalf of the Church as did my predecessor. I hope that I can be a helpful conduit between the Church and this House, and this House and the Church.
Peter Bottomley: My hon. Friend is admirably suited to following the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) in this post. Will he pass back to the Synod the fact that we look forward in this House to having bishops chosen on merit, recognising that sex is not merit and that the Synod can throw out proposals that it does not like?
Tony Baldry: As I said in response to an earlier question, it is very important that the General Synod and the Church should hear the voices of this House, and I am sure that they will have heard, and will hear, the voice of my hon. Friend.
Some members of the TEC Executive Council have now written more about this event, which is first reported on here.
Mark Harris has written Canon Kearon on Faith and Order: It is about troublesome TEC.
In that meeting Kearon said that The Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.” What precisely did he mean by that?
He argued that “The Commission on Unity Faith and Order is central to our way forward as a communion. and a lot of effort has gone into making it balanced.” He argued that “There is a logic which says if you do not share the faith and order of the wider communion then you shouldn’t represent that communion to the wider church.”
All of this makes matters of sexuality – particularly the matters addressed in the moratoria on same-sex blessings and episcopal ordination of partnered gay or lesbian persons – matters of “faith and order.” Now how does that happen? What precisely is this business of Faith and Order?
Katie Sherrod has written a detailed account of this event, see Canon Kearon speaks. One sample:
It began with Canon Kearon telling Bishop Katharine that he wanted the session to be private, with staff and press put out of the room. He talked about how the press was the enemy of us all and that bloggers would take anything that was said and distort it.
So Bishop Katharine said, “All those in favor of a closed session, please raise your hands.” Four or five hands went up.
“All opposed?” Hands went up all over the room. The session remained open to everyone.
There is a lot more on the substance of the discussion.
18 CommentsWATCH (Women and the Church) Press Statement 22nd June 2010
All bishops are equal but some are more equal than others.
WATCH has studied the outline proposals of the Archbishops’ intervention in the progress of legislation for women bishops. Despite the assurances that all will be well we are not convinced that the issues raised regarding jurisdiction will be resolved equitably when the practical steps of implementation are worked out. Will an “unacceptable” Diocesan bishop be required to share jurisdiction and how? Or will it be at her or his discretion? If the former, we are in effect back to automatic transfer.
The timing of the Archbishops’ intervention is similarly to be questioned. The Revision Committee considered all proposals put to them in great and thoughtful detail. These new proposals could have been made in similar detail to the Revision Committee. This would have enabled their practical consequences to be thoroughly considered before they came to be debated by General Synod. It is important that the Church does not re-create the unforeseen consequences of the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod in agreeing to proposals that have not been thoroughly explored and explained. We ask; In what way are ‘nominated bishops’ not actually flying bishops with extended jurisdiction? Are we not creating a two-tier episcopacy of ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ bishops with all that implies about how the Church continues to view women? Have the Archbishops sought the views of the senior women who must be counted amongst “the full diversity of voices in the Church of England”? Has their support been obtained for these proposals?
WATCH has received many messages that suggest that the Revision Committee has accurately judged the amount of compromise that people are prepared to make. While we would prefer the legislation to be simpler and more straightforward we are willing to support the Revision Committee proposals for the sake of the Church. Let us move forward on that basis.
Notes for Editors
36 CommentsWATCH (Women and the Church) is a voluntary organisation of women and men who are campaigning to see women take their place alongside men without discrimination and at every level in the Church of England. This requires the removal of current legal obstacles to the consecration of women as bishops. WATCH believes that the full equality of women and men in the Church is part of God’s will for all people, and reflects the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.
In their announcement yesterday, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York made a serious proposal to amend the legislation before the General Synod to allow Women in the Episcopate.
Not everybody is finding it possible to take their proposal seriously.
As already linked below, Pluralist has written Two for Tea.
DRAFT LEGISLATION ON WOMEN IN THE EPISCOPATE
AMENDMENTS TO BE PROPOSED BY THE ARCHBISHOPS OF ANGLICANISM AND THE NORTH
1. Women are lovely aren’t they and the Revision Committee that has looked into them needs much gratitude. Thank you for your discoveries. However, as Archbishops we would like to overturn all that painstaking and already overturned work and impose our own point of view, and expect the Synod to understand that it is episcopally led. We do not want our ecumenical friend Benedict the 16th to get his way and attract out all the sanctimonious nutters from the Church in England in order to fulfil his ambitions when we need them to fulfil ours, such as passing the Anglican Covenant and introducing a stronger Catholic order of which they would approve. We want these people to think that there is good news for them in this Church…
And an American correspondent has sent this email:
16 CommentsFuture News Stories:
June 21, 2011: Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu, former officials of the Church of England which they destroyed through inept leadership, have been hired by Major League Baseball. The two have immediately unveiled a plan for a “co-ordinate Perfect Game Pitcher” – Teams that could not accept that their pitcher did not pitch a perfect game would get a photogenic male model dressed in a team jersey to stand in at a photography session holding a ball with a big red “0” boldly emblazoned on it. Barry Bonds commented “Hey, that’s cheating!”
June 21, 2012: Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu, former officials of Major League Baseball, which they destroyed through inept leadership, have been hired by the US Republican National Committee. The two have immediately unveiled a plan for a “co-ordinate President” – States that could not accept Sarah Palin as the legitimate elected national leader would get a unemployed Hollywood actress to attend the opening of ball games and to give commencement speeches. Vermont immediately contracted Ellen DeGeneres leaving California to choose between Whoppi Goldberg and Lady Gaga.
June 21, 2013: Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu, former officials of the US Republican National Committee, which they destroyed through inept leadership, have been hired by Apple Computer. They immediately unveiled a plan for a “co-ordinate iPhone” – people who cannot accept that the latest model does not have all the features they personally want would get a small white cardboard box on which they can draw anything they want. The two pre-ordered Binney and Smith’s entire annual production of Crayolas to ship with the new devices.
June 21, 2014: Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu, former officials of Apple Computer, which they destroyed through inept leadership, have been hired to run the Winter Olympics. They immediately unveiled a plan for “co-ordinate Gold Medalists” – people who cannot accept that their country, no matter how tropical, cannot produce a champion curling team will be emailed a link to a You Tube video showing the medal presentation of the legit winners, out of focus and grainy as to prevent positive identification of players or uniforms (actually, a normal You Tube video), with their own national anthem dubbed in.
June 21 2015….
The Diocese of El Camino Real reports on the visit of its bishop, Mary Grey-Reeves to the Diocese of Gloucester in England.
Read From Bp. Mary and Bp. Michael, June 21, 2010
Dear Friends,
Some of you may have heard that on a recent visit to England, +Katharine Jefferts Schori was asked to verify her orders of ordination and asked not to wear her miter. As you know, I am here on a partnership visit in the Diocese of Gloucester. Attached is a greeting and explanation from Bishop Michael regarding our own correspondence with Lambeth Palace, hopefully clarifying a policy that has been in place but not enforced. The incident with +Katharine was of course exacerbated by +Rowan’s Pentecost letter and +Katharine’s response. I must say that I have not met anyone here that is happy with +Rowan’s letter and the actions that it announced; but are rather many are embarrassed and upset.
As you will see from an update that Celeste Ventura and Channing Smith will send shortly, we are having a wonderful time in Gloucester being treated very well and shown great hospitality. There are no major issues regarding the wearing of my miter or being a woman bishop, although of course there are those who do not approve of women’s ordination. It is a very live issue here and there are lots of feelings and emotions as the Church of England approaches another vote, hopefully towards women in the episcopate, in just a few weeks.
In the meanwhile, I send greetings from everyone participating on this triangular partnership and ask your continued prayers. I will send another update at the end of the week after my return late on Wednesday night.
With love and blessings,
+MaryA message from Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester
Dear Sisters and Brothers of the Diocese of El Camino Real
I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, rejoicing as always in our partnership, drawing together your diocese, the Diocese of Western Tanganyika and my own.
It has been a great joy to have Bishop Mary with us these last few days, sharing in our partnership meeting, speaking to our Diocesan Synod, preaching in the Cathedral and visiting parishes. It will be a particular joy when, on the last day of the partnership gathering, she presides at the Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of our Cathedral.
People here in the Diocese of Gloucester share my respect and affection for Bishop Mary. Once again having her here has been a delight and an encouragement to us all. Her graciousness is a wonderful gift to our partnership and companion relationship and I believe the partnership is a gift to our troubled Anglican Communion.
I am attaching a note I have written to try to explain some of the difficulties we have run into in England these last few days in relation to the ministry of visiting bishops. The difficulties have felt to be a long way away from the happy acceptance of one another here.
+Michael
The note mentioned is copied here below the fold.
And for good measure, there is a picture at The Three-Legged Stool, see Comments from ECR and Gloucester on recent events.
8 CommentsFrom 10 Downing Street:
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Right Reverend James Henry Langstaff, MA, Suffragan Bishop of Lynn, for election as Bishop of Rochester in succession to the Right Reverend Michael James Nazir-Ali, BA, MLitt, PhD on his resignation on the 31st August 2009.
Read the government press release.
From the Diocese of Rochester, there is only a PDF file, available here.
The new Church of England Bishop of Rochester will be the Right Reverend James Langstaff, currently the Suffragan Bishop of Lynn in the Diocese of Norwich. In addition, he is now the Bishop designate of Rochester.
Bishop James (53) will become the 107th Bishop of Rochester later this year. He succeeds the Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who retired in September 2009.
Following a media facility, Bishop James will spend the day touring the diocese to visit some of his future colleagues and parishioners. His day will begin at Bishop Justus school in the London borough of Bromley, which is part of the Diocese of Rochester. Here, he will be introduced to staff and pupils before moving on the meet members of his clergy at Chevening. After lunch and a further media facility, Bishop James will meet his staff at Bishopscourt and the Diocesan Office in Rochester. His day will conclude at Rochester Cathedral where he will meet Cathedral staff prior to joining future colleagues and members of the public for Evensong at Rochester Cathedral…
From the Diocese of Norwich: Bishop of Lynn to be next Bishop of Rochester
9 CommentsSome more items in the “mitregate” saga.
Maggi Dawn (whose earlier post Mitregate: the latest church row was linked previously on TA has written two further articles: first, Mitregate (2): “should I go or should I stay, now?”
…My own mailbox this week has had a stream of comments from women who have just been, or are about to be, ordained as priests or deacons. They are disappointed and dismayed as everyone else who sees this whole charade as a massive PR blunder. But there is a personal element too. It swings straight back at them: with one hand the Church has welcomed their giving up of their time, their careers and their economic security in order to serve, while with the other hand, in the very month that they take their orders, it has smacked them down again. You can serve, the Church seems to say, but never dare to forget you are second class citizens.
At one level this whole affair has been a lot of nonsense – as the Presiding Bishop herself said, “It is bizarre; it is beyond bizarre“. But I don’t mind admitting that the onslaught of mockery from those outside the church and disappointment from inside has had me seriously considering hanging up my own cassock.
And also, Mitregate 3:
I feel sure that the Mitregate story will blow over sometime in the next 24 hours. It’s just a small incident, of course – it’s just a hat, it’s just one misunderstanding, it’s not what we are really all about, and it really deserves a good lampooning of the kind Spitting Image used to do so well. For the true picture, you could do no better than to hear or read the marvellous sermon KJS preached at Southwark last weekend. What I regret about this story, though, is that it’s one of a long series of events that make the Church appear out of touch and absorbed in petty details that don’t matter that much.
Many have asked, “What was Lambeth thinking?”. I may be wrong, but my guess is that it was the timing of her visit – so close to our imminent Synod debate on women bishops in England – that made those in Lambeth anxious not to be seen to be forcing the issue. Perhaps this isn’t surprising given that the history of England* has always inclined towards change by degree. We didn’t make the long journey from feudalism to democracy without a war or two, but once France had her revolution we followed with two centuries of political reform, one tiny step at a time. Whether the anxiety for less bloodshed left us with more frustration is hard to say, but it seems that culturally we carved a path we still follow: change comes slowly, with every miniscule step analysed and considered. The seventeenth century proverb (later adapted by Longfellow) could have been written for the Church of England: “God’s mill grinds slow, but sure.”
Kelvin Holdsworth has provided a Scottish perspective in his article Mitregate:
…The short version is that the Presiding Bishop of the US based Episcopal Church was inhibited from wearing a mitre or carrying a pastoral staff whilst visiting Southwark Cathedral last Sunday. I suspect this is because the Church of Englandshire does not recognise that women can become bishops yet and so inhibit women who have been made bishops from acting as bishop or appearing as bishops when in England. It is a kind of small-mindedness that we don’t indulge in up here. Either Bishop Katharine is a bishop or she isn’t. If she is, she gets treated with respect as a bishop or she isn’t and we don’t have to bother about her at all. (It was the same years ago for Bishop Penny from New Zealand who was able to act as a bishop in Scotland even before we had made any decision about women and the Episcopatate but she could not do so in England).
I remember that +Gene Robinson was banned from wearing Episcopal regalia when in England two years ago for similar reasons. However, I could not remember whether he had worn one a titfer liturgically when he came here. It made me look back at the video of that service and I found that he did indeed wear a mitre. Seems to me that making headgear the cause of controversy is displacement activity.
Presumably the no-mitre on +Katharine rule was instigated in order to appease a certain kind of Evangelical lobby group. (Which again, I don’t think we really have up here either, thank God). Oh how sweet the irony that they become the first bible-believing fundamentalists to insist that a woman not wear a hat in public worship…
And it appears that Kenneth Kearon made a comment about this last week in Maryland.
But this Canadian church website has a video which everyone should watch. (h/t SueM)
16 CommentsJonathan Petre in the Mail on Sunday reports that Archbishops risk ‘bloodbath’ over women priests by letting opponents of reform remain in the clergy.
23 CommentsThe Archbishops of Canterbury and York are to make a dramatic intervention in the long-running row over women bishops this week by demanding that opponents of female clergy are not driven out of the Church.
Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu are so concerned thousands of traditionalist churchgoers will quit when women become bishops that they are to risk the wrath of liberals by calling for major reforms in Church legislation.
Sources said their statement will spell out a legal formula that will give traditionalist clergy and parishes the right to reject the authority of a woman bishop…
The Advisory Committee of Communion Partners has issued A Response to the Pentecost Pastoral Letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
(To discover who exactly the signatories are, scroll to the bottom.)
I failed to link earlier to the statement from the Chicago Consultation which doesn’t seem to have made it yet to the consultation’s own website. So I have copied it here below the fold.
Another statement comes from The Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission. That one is here: look for The Convent Station Statement on the changing ethos of the Anglican Communion Sunday, June 13, 2010
Andrew Goddard has written at Fulcrum: Reflections on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost Letter: A pathway for Anglican spiritual renewal?
8 CommentsFrom a press release by the Anglican Church in North America:
The Anglican Church in North America has 614 congregations in 20 dioceses. More than 200 other congregations are ministry partners with the Anglican Church, including the congregations of The Anglican Mission. The Anglican Church represents more than 100,000 Christians in North America.
Previous reports here, here, and here.
This short PDF file explains where these congregations came from.
23 CommentsENS reports: Secretary general says Episcopal Church should have expected consequences for Glasspool consecration
The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, told the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council June 18 that when Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Glasspool was ordained as the church’s second openly gay, partnered bishop, the church ought to have known that it would face sanctions.
However, he said that in the recent removal of Episcopal Church members from some Anglican Communion ecumenical dialogues “the aim has not been to get at the Episcopal Church, but to find room for others to remain as well as enabling as full a participation as possible for the Episcopal Church within the communion.”
Kearon claimed that the communion’s ecumenical dialogues “are at the point of collapse” and said that the last meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, of which Jefferts Schori is an elected member, “was probably the worst meeting I have experienced.”
“The viability of our meetings are at stake,” he added…
For earlier reports of the meeting, see Executive Council quizzes Secretary General.
In a formal statement issued after the meeting, available from ENS here, the Council said this about the encounter with Kearon:
The 45-minute session on Friday with invited guest Canon Kenneth Kearon was carefully prepared for by the Standing Committee on World Mission, who wrote the thoughtful and substantive questions that made clear our commitment to being an inclusive church while also deeply committed to classic Anglicanism and deepening our relationship with our sisters and brothers across the Communion.
Canon Kearon began by describing the beginning of the current tensions as the increasing “problem of growth and diversity in the Anglican Communion.” This statement was significant to a body that has long seen diversity in the Body of Christ as an opportunity and has sought to base its actions on the baptismal promise that we will seek and serve Christ in all people and respect the dignity of every human being.
The questions sought clarification on the presenting issues, including the Archbishop of Canterbury’s removal of appointees from The Episcopal Church to ecumenical bodies and Canon Kearon’s statement that The Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.” He also responded to concerns about incursions by other provinces of the Communion. He acknowledged that the Archbishop of Canterbury considers certain activities of the Province of the Southern Cone to constitute an incursion, but is awaiting clarification about the extent of these activities from the primate of that province. However, such ongoing breaches of the moratorium on incursions do not rise to the same level of departure from the faith and order of the Communion as does the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians.
The Council very much appreciated the chance to meet with Canon Kearon, who agreed to respond in writing to additional questions from members of the Council.
The Living Church also has a report, see Kenneth Kearon Defends Archbishop’s Decisions.
63 CommentsUpdated Friday evening
The Church Times reports on last Sunday’s service at Southwark Cathedral, in a sidebar to the story headlined Bishops criticise USPG cuts.
Doffed: the Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church, Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, was asked by Lambeth Palace not to wear her mitre when she visited Southwark Cathedral last Sunday. As a consequence, she carried it under her arm. In her sermon, she spoke of the fear of strangers: “There’s something in our ancient genetic memory that ratchets up our state of arousal when we meet a stranger — it’s a survival mechanism that has kept our species alive for millennia by being wary about strangers. But there’s also a piece of our make-up that we talk about in more theological terms — the part that leaps to judgement about that person’s sins. It’s connected to knowing our own sinfulness, and our tendency toward competition.” She urged the congregation to lose the “defensive veneer that wants to shut out other sinners”.
In a letter to The Times, a group of 15 clerics in the Southwark diocese, mostly conservative Evangelicals, criticised the invitation: “We seriously question the judgement of those who have not withdrawn their invitation to her after her recent consecration of Mary Glasspool,” a partnered lesbian. She also spoke at the Scottish Synod, where she talked of her Church’s “radical hospitality”. At the USPG annual meeting, she was upbraided by the Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Thabo Makgoba: the support for same-sex partnerships had communicated “a measure of uncaring at the consequent difficulties for us”
In a related story, the Church of England Newspaper has this report by George Conger Bishop Jefferts Schori rebuffs Dr. Williams’ call for restraint. It includes this:
The June 2 public letter follows upon private communications between Bishop Jefferts Schori and Dr. Rowan Williams about her continuing role in the councils of the Anglican Communion.
The press officer to the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council has confirmed to The Church of England Newspaper that Canon Kenneth Kearon hand delivered a letter from Dr. Williams to Bishop Jefferts Schori at the April 17 consecration ceremony of Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut.
The chancellor to the Presiding Bishop, David Booth Beers, told bishops attending the May 24 to 28 Living Our Vows bishops’ training programme at the Lake Logan Episcopal Center in North Carolina that in this letter Dr. Williams had asked the Presiding Bishop to consider absenting herself from meetings of the Anglican Communion’s Standing Committee and the Primates Meeting in light of the Episcopal Church’s violation of the moratoria on gay bishops and blessings, those present tell CEN.
Speaking to a group of bishops during an informal after dinner session, Mr. Beers stated the Presiding Bishop had rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion, observing that he had no authority to remove her from the Primates Standing Committee as she had been elected by the North and South American primates. She also objected to Dr. Williams’ claim to have the authority to ban her from the councils of the church.
One of the bishops at the evening encounter told CEN that speculation on the future structures of the Communion was also shared by Mr. Beers with the bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s press office did not respond to requests for clarification on Mr. Beers’ comments, while a spokesman for the Presiding Bishop declined to comment on “speculation and conjecture.”
Other reports:
Diana Butler Bass at Beliefnet Mitregate: The Anglican Crisis Over Women’s Hats
Maggi Dawn Mitregate: the latest church row
Friday evening update
According to the American Anglican Council in an article headlined Jefferts Schori: “We were not asked to withdraw” the following exchanges took place at the press conference following the Executive Council meeting in Maryland today:
Robert Lundy, American Anglican Council: Presiding Bishop, my question is in regards to the election of a new representative for The Episcopal Church to the Anglican Consultative Council. Was that new representative Bishop Ian Douglas and if so, will you and Bishop Ian Douglas be attending the next Standing Committee meeting of the ACC?
Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori: We expect those elections to happen this afternoon and yes I expect the representatives of The Episcopal Church to be present at that meeting.
President Anderson: We’re looking forward to the election. We have two candidates in both positions that are open. . .
David Virtue, Virtue Online: My question is for the Presiding Bishop. In light of events recently concerning the Archbishop’s Pentecost letter and the TEC being asked to withdraw several ecumenical leaders from the ACC, will the Presiding Bishop and Executive Council consider cutting the 40% budget of the ACC? Has that been discussed?
Jefferts Schori: Your first observation is not accurate. Members of Ecumenical dialogues were removed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. We were not asked to withdraw. We were not asked to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council. There has been no discussion here of reducing our offering to the Anglican Communion Office.
Mary Francis Schjonberg, Episcopal Life: At the beginning of this presentation this morning, what was your general sense that the way he (Kenneth Kearon) sees things may not be the way The Episcopal Church sees things. At the end of the session, do you think there was any greater understanding on his part or on the Council’s part about the situation in the Communion?
Anderson: I’d like to say in response to that one of the comments that Secretary Kearon made in his opening remarks struck me particularly where he mentioned that some of the issues that they have identified in the Anglican Communion and one of them, a presenting issue, is diversity. In the first place, I don’t think that The Episcopal Church sees diversity as an issue in the same way in which Secretary Kearon presented it of being seen from his viewpoint. I did not see any change in that by the time we had finished talking. I didn’t see any concrete evidence that there was a particular newly developed line of understanding becoming perhaps both ways.
Jefferts Schori: I think we look forward to the possibility of…upon further reflection that all participants in the conversation this morning they have had their understanding increased.
And two more #mitregate articles
RNS Daniel Burke It’s hats-off to female bishop, and not in a good way
Ruth Gledhill Mitregate: The Sequel
34 CommentsUpdated yet further Thursday afternoon
An audio recording of the Presiding Bishop’s sermon is now available on the cathedral website, along with the text.
Go to this page.
Also, in the afternoon, the Dean of Southwark made comments about the morning event in his sermon, text here.
This morning there is some comment about the event in the Diary column of the Guardian. Read that over here.
Updates
ENS reports from the TEC Executive Council meeting now proceeding in Maryland, that Lambeth Palace tells presiding bishop not to wear symbol of office.
In the week before her visit, the presiding bishop said, Lambeth pressured her office to provide evidence of her ordination to each order of ministry.
“This is apparently a requirement of one of their canons about the ministry of clergy from overseas,” she said.
The presiding bishop said both the ordination and mitre issues put the Very Rev. Colin Slee, Southwark’s dean, “in a very awkward position.”
She called the requirements “nonsense” and said, “It is bizarre; it is beyond bizarre.”
A commenter on another thread has linked to a picture showing the Presiding Bishop carrying her mitre.
The full text of the Overseas and Other Clergy (Ministry and Ordination) Measure 1967 can be found here, and further context can be found at this TA article from February 2005 (scroll down to Question 56 and follow the links).
A comment from the thread below has been republished in this article at Episcopal Café:
jdd commenting on the story that the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the Presiding Bishop permission to preach and preside at Southwark Cathedral on the condition that she not cover her hair…
As to precedents:
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold wore a mitre at Southwark Cathedral in 2006, see Griswold wore mitre at Southwark.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wore a mitre when she preached at Salisbury Cathedral in 2008, see Salisbury diocese welcomes Presiding Bishop, Sudanese bishops for pre-Lambeth hospitality initiative. See this picture.
Ruth Gledhill has written about this on her blog, see Bishop crossed in mitre row. Another picture there too.
The story in The Times is headlined Female US bishop forced to carry mitre in ‘snub’ by Lambeth Palace, but that is behind a paywall.
94 CommentsUpdated 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
31 CommentsThe 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…
WATCH has issued the following statement.
33 CommentsMOVING FORWARD ON WOMEN BISHOPS – CALL TO ACTION!
WATCH supports the draft legislation proposed by the Revision Committee as a framework for moving forward without further delay. But this represents a significant compromise.
The ideal
WATCH has always campaigned for the simplest possible legislation for women bishops, that is, a Single Clause Measure. This is the only way of having women bishops without discrimination. A Single Clause Measure would have brought women in the Church of England under the protection of the Equality Act. It would also have put us in step with all other Anglican Provinces that have consecrated women as bishops. Most importantly it would have signaled that the Church now values women as much as men. What is being proposed falls short of this ideal.The current proposals
The draft legislation provides for the consecration of women as bishops with special arrangements for those with conscientious difficulties by way of delegation from the diocesan bishop under a statutory Code of Practice. This is the approach that Synod approved after lengthy debate in July 2008.Under the proposals, each diocesan bishop would be required to draw up a Scheme in her or his diocese that takes account of a national Code of Practice and provides local arrangements for the performance of certain Episcopal functions in relation to parishes with conscientious difficulties.
In addition such parishes would be able to request, when there is a vacancy, that only a male incumbent or priest-in-charge be appointed.
A compromise for WATCH
It is a significant compromise for WATCH to consider supporting anything short of a Single Clause Measure. However, the Revision Committee has listened to all viewpoints and investigated the practical possibilities with great care. Their lengthy report is a testament to the enormous patience and generosity of their process.The Revision Committee’s proposals
- Allow for the consecration of women as bishops
- Maintain the integrity of the church and the episcopate
- Make provision for those who are opposed to women becoming bishops
There seems to be a consensus emerging across the moderate mainstream that this is a good basis for moving forward.
All these factors lead us to believe that WATCH should support the proposals at Synod. However, this is a compromise so that we can move ahead with women bishops NOW and be as inclusive as we can without compromising the integrity of the episcopate or of women.
Statement from WATCH (Women and the Church) in response to the Bishop of Durham’s recent comments appealing for further delay in consecrating women as bishops
1 CommentThe Bishop of Durham has suggested to his Diocesan Synod (21 May 2010 at http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Diocesan_Address_May_2010.htm) that the Church of England should delay moving forward with the proposed legislation to allow women to be bishops and engage in further theological debate.
WATCH welcomes the Bishop of Durham’s clear support for the ordination of women, but takes issue with his call for delay. As Bishop Tom himself said in his address, the move to the ordination of women ‘has been debated and decided by the whole church meeting in solemn conclave’. Bishop Tom has himself long argued that ordaining women is right according to the Bible.
From Australia comes this report that:
There is a growing backlash against women being treated as equals in churches around Australia, with some women being pressured not to become priests. Barney Zwartz reports on the battle looming.
Read Men lead, women obey? from the Melbourne Age.
14 CommentsENS has published the full text of the sermon preached at Southwark Cathedral this morning. See Presiding bishop preaches at Southwark Cathedral in London. The text is copied here, below the fold.
23 CommentsInclusive Church has issued this open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
64 CommentsSt John’s Vicarage
Secker St
London SE1 8UF10th June 2010
Dear Archbishop
We are writing to express our grave concern about the contents of your Pentecost letter and its consequences applied with such speed by the Anglican Communion Office.
Your letter opens with a reminder of the joy of Pentecost, when “we celebrate the gift God gives us of being able to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ in the various languages of the whole human world”. But the result of your proposals – to summarily remove from those Communion bodies to which you directly appoint, those provinces which are in your view in breach of the moratoria – is a diminishing of the diversity of the Anglican Communion and a silencing of the different languages in which we are called to speak.
Our concerns are three-fold.
First, it is clear from the actions of the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion that the application of the sanctions is one-sided and disproportionate. The Anglican Church of North America may now provide cover for the Bishops previously ordained by Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya but these provinces remain committed to them and the actions which made the emergence of ACNA possible, actions carried out in direct violation of the moratorium that you asked for. It would be farcical to suggest they are no longer breaking the moratoria just because they have been successful in generating a breakaway body to provide local cover for the result of their acts. The Secretary-General is “seeking clarification” regarding the Southern Cone and Canada. However, without consultation, he has proceeded in removing members of The Episcopal Church from Communion bodies. This kind of punitive exclusion will do nothing to promote the “path of mutual respect and thankfulness that will hold us in union and help us grow in that truth.”
Second, by proposing these actions you are not strengthening but diminishing the distinctiveness and the contribution of the Anglican voice to our ecumenical dialogue. It is clear that all the major churches are engaged in the struggle to acknowledge and include LGBT Christians. The Anglican Communion has been more open than most about its struggle, and has earned the respect of many of our partners in this. By excluding those provinces which have been able, despite deep controversy and through profound study and prayer, to include both those who welcome LGBT Christians and those who do not, you are empowering the Anglican Communion to speak with a voice which does not reflect its truth; it is, in short, inauthentic. Further, it fails to acknowledge the terrible persecution which is experienced by LGBT Christians, and those who uphold human rights as reflecting crucial Gospel values, in many of those provinces which are at the forefront of opposition to TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. Your previous statements opposing homophobia and seeking generosity from (among others) the Church of Uganda are undermined by these actions.
Third, the actions proposed and taken appear to pre-empt the consequences of the draft Covenant. You reiterate that “the Covenant is not envisaged as an instrument of control”. And yet, by these sanctions you are prefiguring the life of the Covenant by already excluding from Anglican dialogue those who do not have majority support – creating, by default, track 2 churches. It is increasingly clear, as discussions about the Covenant continue, that whatever its original intentions it is already becoming an instrument of control, an additional “instrument of unity” which will achieve precisely the opposite.
By excluding TEC and possibly the ACoC in this way, the voices are also silenced of the thousands of members of the Church of England for whom the life of TEC and the ACoC is a source of joy and thanksgiving – for whom the full inclusion of LGBT Christians within our parishes is already a reality, even though the structures and senior hierarchy of the Church of England are unable to acknowledge this reality.
You stress the urgency of mission. The result of these actions is further to undermine the mission of the Church of England, and to cause despair amongst those who are trying to enable all to understand the love of God. Supporters of Inclusive Church have spoken with you on a number of occasions about the vital urgency of speaking generously about the breadth of Christian experience. Unless we do, we will be unable to re-engage with the communities we seek to serve in this country and who are bemused by the Church of England’s continuing rejection of LGBT Christians.
The period of engagement for which you call will not be served by putting in place further exclusionary structures. It is only the conservative extreme of the Anglican Communion which appears to support – indeed, to encourage – further division. We are profoundly supportive of the sort of frank and open conversations for which you too hope. Therefore, a question – how do you anticipate these conversations being fruitful when decisions have already been taken which further reduce the status of LGBT Christians and those who welcome them?
Yours sincerely
Canon Giles Goddard
Chair, IC
