We reported earlier on the letter from the Archbishop of Uganda to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And even earlier there was a letter from the Bishop of Egypt, which we reported here.
Now the Archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean, The Most Revd Ian Ernest, who is Bishop of Mauritius, has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury as well.
Read his letter in full here.
Also, ENS has INDIAN OCEAN: Primate suspends ‘all communication’ with Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Canada.
51 CommentsWe have already reported the Archbishop of Canterbury’s participation in the BBC Radio 4 Start the Week programme last week.
The Archbishop has now published the following on his website, with links to audio files of the programme and a subsequent discussion on the BBC’s Feedback programme.
Archbishop on BBC Radio 4: Start the Week
Monday 05 April 2010
In a special Easter edition of Start the Week recorded at Lambeth Palace, Andrew Marr discusses personal faith and institutional failure with Dr Rowan Williams.
The programme also discusses atheism and the Bible with novelist Philip Pullman, on the publication of his new work ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’; whether faith can or should enter economics with Islamic scholar Professor Mona Siddiqui and cultural identity and religious jokes with David Baddiel on the release of his new film The Infidel.
Play 100405 Easter Start The Week [28Mb]
A few days after Start the Week was broadcast, Feedback, the forum show for comments, queries and criticisms of BBC radio programmes and policy asked ‘Did Radio 4 misrepresent statements made by the Archbishop of Canterbury in its news bulletins over the weekend?’
Play 100409 BBC Feedback [12Mb]
1 CommentUpdated Tuesday evening
The Primates Council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON/FCA) met in Bermuda from 5 to 9 April 2010. They have issued a communiqué (online here and here) which is copied below the fold.
The communiqué refers to the fourth Global South to South Encounter (GSE4) to be held later this month at St Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore. The programme for GSE4 is here and the list of participants here.
Update See also ENS report, Conservative Primates Council elects new leadership, criticizes Episcopal Church.
35 CommentsUpdated Saturday to restore a missing paragraph to the letter
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has written to her fellow Anglican primates regarding the forthcoming consecration of bishop-elect Mary Glasspool. The letter is posted at the Diocese of East Tennessee website, and reprinted here below the fold.
41 CommentsUpdated Friday afternoon twice and Saturday afternoon
The Most Revd Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of the Church of Uganda has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury today about “about the shift in the balance of powers among the Instruments of Communion”. He complains that the Joint Standing Committee is being given “enhanced responsibility” whilst the Primates of the Anglican Communion (of which he is one) are being given “diminished responsibility”. In the letter he resigns from the Standing Committee.
He also says that “There is an urgent need for a meeting of the Primates to continue sorting out the crisis that is before us, especially given the upcoming consecration of a Lesbian as Bishop in America.” However “the meeting should not include the Primates of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada who are proceeding with unbiblical practices that contradict the faith of Anglicanism”.
The full text of the letter can be found here and is also copied here below the fold.
Update
Pat Ashworth reports this for the Church Times: Anglicans ‘moving into darkness’ says Orombi.
Ruth Gledhill is reporting in her Times blog that Orombi has not in fact resigned from the Standing Committee.
We also have a copy of the original letter.
Matthew Davies at Episcopal Life reports this as UGANDA: Archbishop Orombi expresses concerns about Standing Committee.
37 CommentsUpdated Monday afternoon
This morning BBC Radio 4 broadcast a special edition of Start the Week recorded at Lambeth Palace. This was trailed as follows.
In a special edition of Start the Week recorded at Lambeth Palace, Andrew Marr talks to the Archbishop of Canterbury about his role combining the history and structure of the church with personal belief. They are joined by Philip Pullman who was inspired by Dr Rowan Williams to write his new book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ about religion, truth and interpretation; by Professor Mona Siddiqui who’ll be discussing her new role trying to marry religious values with economic growth and by author and comedian David Baddiel who’ll be talking about religious identity and his new film The Infidel, a comedy about a Muslim who realises he’s Jewish.
The programme is now available to listen to online; the main interview with the archbishop is between 1min 30sec and 8min 45sec from the beginning.
Update As well as the streaming audio linked above, there is a podcast available for download.
The Guardian has a leading article: Rowan Williams: Little cause for regrets. Archbishop has said out loud something that is completely straightforward and thereby provoked an enormous row.
There have been a number of news items in the last few days anticipating what the archbishop was going to say.
The BBC itself carried this report on Saturday Williams criticises Irish Catholic Church ‘credibility’ followed by Rowan Williams expresses ‘regret’ over church remarks and then on Sunday by Archbishop of Canterbury sorry over abuse comments.
David Batty in The Guardian Archbishop of Canterbury: Irish Catholic church has lost all credibility
Ruth Gledhill in the Times Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury, regrets Catholic attack
Ireland Archbishop stunned by Dr Rowan Williams’ criticism of Catholic Church
Archbishop on papal offer: ‘God bless them, I don’t’
updated Maundy Thursday
Archbishop Peter Akinola has retired as Primate of All Nigeria. His successor as primate, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, was installed on 25 March and gave this sermon.
Riazat Butt has written in The Guardian about the new primate’s views as expressed in his sermon: The new archbishop’s old prejudice. Archbishop Okoh of Nigeria has been trotting out the same anti-gay rhetoric his predecessor, Peter Akinola, was famous for.
Ruth Gledhill has blogged about this in the Times: Nigerian Anglican primate speaks out on fear of women.
Ademola Oni has written in The Punch (described in its masthead as “Nigeria’s most widely read newspaper”) that Anglican Primate advises politicians on selfless service.
Oscarline Onwuemenyi at AllAfrica writes that Anglican Primate Vows to Fight Homosexuality.
Archbishop Okoh referred in his sermon to the the bishop of Liverpool’s address to his diocesan synod that we linked to here and here.
update
Pat Ashworth reports this in the Church Times as New Primate glad to be anti-gay.
10 CommentsThe Fulcrum Leadership Team has published Where do we go from here? in response to the consents to the election of Mary Glasspool as bishop suffragan in the diocese of Los Angeles.
In response Matthew Davies at Episcopal Life has published ENGLAND: Conservative group denounces consent to Glasspool’s election in Los Angeles.
14 CommentsMichael Poon has written a paper The Anglican Communion as Communion of Churches: on the historic significance of the Anglican Covenant.
It is available in various formats from Fulcrum and Global South Anglican.
The paper aims to draw out the historic significance of the Anglican Covenant for the Anglican Communion. It begins by examining the nature and reasons of the “ecclesial deficit” of the Anglican Communion. It points out that the ecclesial status of the Anglican Communion has never been clarified. The Anglican Communion arises historically as an accident. It has never been constituted as an ecclesial body. The paper traces the transformations in the Anglican ecclesiastical map amid powerful global undercurrents in the second half of the twentieth century. It reflects on the emergence of the status of the See of Canterbury as “focus of unity” of the Anglican Communion. It proceeds to point out how uncritical adoption of the term “instruments of unity” from Protestant ecumenical dialogues led to confusion and mistrust among Anglican Churches. The paper then explores the potentials of communion-ecclesiology for the Anglican Covenant. It goes on to argue that the Anglican Covenant, grounded in the New Covenant, provides the canonical structure of the Anglican Communion. It constitutes the particular Churches to be a confident Communion of Churches. The inter-Anglican structures of the Anglican Communion should in fact be the ecclesiastical embodiment of the Anglican Covenant.
The Revd Canon Dr Michael Poon is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Trinity Theological College, Singapore.
36 CommentsThe Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd John Neill, thinks that a two-tier fellowship may emerge in the Anglican Communion as the member- Churches debate signing the Anglican Covenant.
Dr Neill, who was speaking recently to members of the Marsh Society in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin, said: “I don’t like two-tier fellowships, but it may be a way forward at the moment.”
Read the full article from the Church of Ireland Gazette:
Archbishop of Dublin fears emergence of ‘two-tier’ Anglican Communion by Patrick Comerford (scroll all the way down)
4 CommentsThe Republic of Ireland is considering a Civil Partnership Bill.
See this earlier report on what the Evangelical Alliance Ireland said about it.
The Church of Ireland Gazette has a report this week on what the Church of Ireland is doing in relation to it. See C. of I. delegation on Civil Partnership Bill (scroll down for item).
1 Comment…”The group expressed the view that many in the Church of Ireland would welcome the legislation and that it was important that Government legislated for all its citizens. They did, however, raise issues relating to freedom of conscience and property.”
In response to a request for further information on those issues, the Gazette was told that some members of the delegation had expressed concern over freedom of conscience issues for registrars who may have objections to participating in civil partnership ceremonies for same-sex couples.
The issues of property, we were told, related to the availability of parish halls under the Equal Status Act in respect of goods and services. We were told that clarity was also sought on the issue of Church halls that were not made commercially available, and that Department officials had said they would respond on that point…
I have not posted here about the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill for a whole month.
However, the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda has this week issued a statement. This body consists of: the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda, the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council, the Church of Uganda, the Uganda Orthodox Church and the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
The statement can be found here (H/T Warren Throckmorton).
See also the analysis of this statement at Box Turtle Bulletin.
The earlier statement from the Church of Uganda was reported here.
Also, this article was published by the Washington Post on Friday In Africa, a step backward on human rights by Desmond Tutu.
15 CommentsThe Anglican Church of Canada has issued a Communiqué from the Dialogue of African and Canadian Bishops.
For a little over a year, five Canadian and six African dioceses have engaged in diocese-to-diocese theological dialogue on matters relating to human sexuality and to mission. With one exception, each diocese has established a theological working group to prepare papers and responses which were shared with their partner diocese on the opposite continent (see below for list of participants). Ontario and Botswana exchanged documents related to sustainability in the context of mission. These dialogues have emerged from, and are a deepening of, relationships established during the Indaba and Bible Study processes at the Lambeth Conference of 2008…
From February 24 to 26, the bishops of these dioceses met at the Anglican Communion Office, St. Andrew’s House in London, England. In a context grounded by common prayer and eucharistic celebration we reflected together on our local experiences of mission and the challenges facing the Church in our diverse contexts. Though the initial exchange of papers had been related in most cases to matters of human sexuality and homosexuality in particular, our face to face theological conversation necessarily deepened to explore the relationships between the Gospel and the many particular cultural realities in which the Church is called to mission…
There is a further report from ENS by Matthew Davies, see African, Canadian bishops engage in theological dialogue.
4 Comments…The Rev. Canon Phil Groves, facilitator of the Anglican Communion Listening Process, told ENS he was “delighted” by the dialogue. “This initiative of the Anglican Church of Canada is a direct response to the call of ACC 13 for participation in mutual listening,” he said, referring to Resolution 12 passed by the 13th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, the communion’s main policy-making body.
Speaking about the meeting of African and Canadian bishops, Groves said: “It was a privilege for me to be invited to participate in their final day and to hear of their common commitment to mission in the way of Christ. Such dialogues build up trust and are a source of hope for the future of the communion.”
Bruce Kaye, who is an Australian theologian, has published a series of articles about the Anglican Covenant. Here are some links:
The Anglican Covenant Get Ready for Trouble which points to The Anglican Covenant is coming ready or not
Why the Covenant is a bad Idea for Anglicans 1
Why the Covenant is a bad Idea for Anglicans 2. Ecclesiology.
3. It will complicate and confuse Institutional Relations
4. Covenant still an inadequate response for Anglicans
5. Covenant and fundamental issues for Anglicans
14 CommentsThe American Anglican Council (a body which is closely associated with ACNA) has published a document entitled COMMUNION GOVERNANCE The Role and Future of the Historic Episcopate and the Anglican Communion Covenant by Stephen Noll.
The document itself is a PDF file available here or as web pages here.
There is an introduction and explanation of it by Phil Ashey which can be found at Introduction to “Communion Governance”. The key summary is:
23 Comments1. The conclusion of this essay is that the one matter of principle that cannot be abandoned without abandoning our particular catholic and Anglican heritage is the responsibility of the ordained and bishops in council in particular, to rule and adjudicate matters of Communion doctrine and discipline.
2. If this is true, then the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meeting (with the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding as primus inter pares) must be seen as the primary organs to deal with articulation of the faith, as happened at Lambeth 1998, and with breaches of the faith, as has not happened since then.
3. There must be only one track: those who adopt the Covenant are members of the Communion; those who do not adopt it are not. Bp. Mouneer Anis is right: when a sufficient number of Provinces have adopted the Covenant, the ACC and its Standing Committee should stand down and be constituted solely from Covenant-keeping Provinces. (pp. 48-49)
Updated again Tuesday
Next Monday, FiF UK is observing a Day of Prayer in relation to Anglicanorum Coetibus. Bishop Andrew Burnham’s pastoral letter for February is here.
But Bishop Paul Richardson hasn’t waited, see Martin Beckford’s news story Bishop who predicted death of Church of England converts to Rome.
Meanwhile FiF Australia has already made its decision on this. See this news report in the Telegraph Australia’s traditional Anglicans vote to convert to Catholicism.
Andrew Brown reported in Cif belief on “an email from an Anglican ‘flying bishop’ to a Catholic bishop in Australia” in The cloak and dagger Catholics.
Austen Ivereigh commented on this in America in Romeward Anglicans: a case of too much politics?
Damian Thompson has written in the Catholic Herald It does not matter if the Ordinariate is small at first (also copied over to his Telegraph blog).
Update
A new website, Friends of the Ordinariate, has been launched. This website has been commended by Forward in Faith UK. The Church Times blog has some further tidbits.
Riazat Butt has commented at Cif belief Who’s in the Foto?
24 CommentsThe Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) website has published the text of some reports by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) concerning recent activities of Archbishop Peter Akinola.
See Law suits against traditional Anglicans demonic, says Akinola.
The full text of this is copied below the fold.
Scroll down even further for the full text of a second article titled Battle against unscriptural practices not over, says Akinola. Also copied.
So far, I have not been able to locate either of these reports at the website of NAN.
(h/t to Episcopal Café)
25 CommentsA further release from the Church of Uganda has been received.
See here for the most recent statement. Also here for an earlier statement.
Now this:
12 CommentsFor Immediate Release
12th February 2010Anglican Churches in America Not Part of Church of Uganda’s Position on Anti-Homosexuality Bill
The Church of Uganda does not have oversight of any Anglican churches in the United States. Member churches of the Anglican Church in North America that have been in partnership with the Church of Uganda in the past were not in any way involved in the Church of Uganda’s position on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. They were not consulted, nor was their support enlisted. The Ugandan context is different from the American context and it is likely that our American friends will have a different position from that of the Church of Uganda.
– END –
On 9 February, the Church of Uganda issued a statement on the proposed Uganda legislation. The full text of this is contained in a PDF file. It has also been copied below the fold.
According to the covering email:
18 CommentsThe attached document is the official position of the Church of Uganda as endorsed by the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda.
Kindly ensure that it is represented in its entirety.
At Ekklesia there is some analysis of what Rowan Williams said on Tuesday, in Archbishop says sorry to gays but defends Church’s discrimination.
In Cif: belief Savi Hensman gets more explicit: Rowan’s apology falls short.
And, I wrote a piece for Cif:belief which is headlined Rowan’s speech and the equality bill.
Also, Kelvin Holdsworth has written Still Shocking.
4 Comments