Updated again Monday evening
Episcopal News Service has published: Presiding Bishop comments on San Joaquin actions:
…I lament the actions of the Bishop and Convention of the Diocese of San Joaquin to repudiate their membership in the Episcopal Church. While it is clear that this process is not yet complete, the fact that the Bishop and Convention have voted to remove the accession clause required by the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church would seem to imply that there is no intent to terminate this process before it reaches its full conclusion. Our task as the Episcopal Church is God’s mission of reconciling the world, and actions such as this distract and detract from that mission.
I deeply lament the pain, confusion, and suffering visited on loyal members of the Episcopal Church within the Diocese of San Joaquin, and want them to know of my prayers and the prayers of many, many others.
I continue to consult with others involved in responding to this extracanonical action…
Update The ENS report of this also includes additional comment by Bonnie Anderson, and other information, see here.
On the East Coast, the Washington Post has a report Episcopal Churches To Vote on Departure by Michelle Boorstein.
Earlier, the Washington Times had Episcopalians warned against leaving diocese.
On the West Coast, the Fresno Bee has this report Valley diocese votes to separate by Ron Orozco.
Episcopal Majority has published a letter it has received from Rowan Williams, in reply to two letters sent by Bill Coats. Read all the correspondence at The Archbishop Responds.
Update The Living Church later reported on this correspondence here.
Doug LeBlanc wrote a column in Episcopal Life about Why Canterbury matters.
Sarah Dylan Breuer wrote a commentary on current events in San Joaquin and elsewhere, titled increasing chaos among breakaway movements.
13 CommentsToday’s Observer contains a leader and an opinion column both of which respond to the remarks of the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali as quoted last week in the Daily Mail.
First, a reminder of the Daily Mail report by Steve Doughty:
A senior Church of England bishop have warned that Anglican youth clubs, welfare projects and charities may close because of new gay rights laws.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, said that the Church of England’s charities would be “affected” by the rules, which will force them to give equal treatment to homosexuals.
He declared: “It will be the poor and disadvantaged who will be the losers….”
…Pakistani-born Dr Nazir-Ali said: “I welcome warmly what the Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham has said about the Sexual Orientation Regulations.
“In the proposed regulations there is no clear exemption for religious belief even though it is widely known that several of the faiths in this country will have serious difficulty.”
He added: “Religion affects every area of life and cannot be reduced to just worship.
“These regulations will certainly affect a great deal of charitable work done by the churches and others. It is the poor and disadvantaged who will be the losers.”
Now, today’s Observer. First, Nick Cohen in Let’s not sleepwalk with the Christian soldiers says:
…Last week, full-page adverts launched a histrionic campaign from the church’s evangelical wing against New Labour’s attempts to secure equality for homosexuals. The low point came when the Bishop of Rochester claimed ‘the poor and disadvantaged will be the losers’ if religious charities are forced to treat gays fairly.
Much can change before 25 December, but after the past fortnight, there is a fair chance that the hedonism and family quarrels of the traditional British Christmas will be overshadowed by religion, of all things.
Only the Tory press sympathised with the wild assault on equality under the law for homosexuals, but hardly anyone defended British Airways. Tellingly, only now can you see widespread anger at the failure to call Christmas by its proper name, although Birmingham City Council has been burbling about ‘Winterval’ since 1998.
The ferocity of the Church of England’s internal conflicts could make a Balkan warlord blanch. However, Ekklesia, a think-tank on the church’s left, and Anglican Mainstream, from its evangelical right, agreed on one point. They both told me that committed Christians with a sincere faith were just another minority – somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of the population. But beyond them there were millions of people who could be glad that Christians were asserting themselves under special circumstances…
and the leader column The government must not buckle over gay rights said:
…It says much about modern Britain that civil partnerships were introduced without a rumpus. The law was not forcing liberal values on a reactionary society, it was catching up with attitudes that had already changed. Prejudice still exists, but there is no doubt that Britain in 2006 is a much better place in which to be gay than it was 10 years ago…
…In the same spirit a law has been drafted that would ban discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Hotels, for example, would not be able to deny rooms to gay couples. Schools would not be able to deny places to gay pupils. The changes were due to be introduced earlier this year but have been postponed because of lobbying by church groups.
Last week the Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols attacked the government for what he called the imposition of its moral agenda on the church. The Anglican Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, warned that church-based charities would be forced to close their doors if the government insisted they let in gay people. ‘It is the poor and disadvantaged who will be the losers,’ he said.
The churches are thus trying to depict the Sexual Orientation Regulations as an assault on their philanthropic work, including faith schools and adoption agencies. That is a tendentious argument. ‘The poor and disadvantaged’ would only lose out if the churches choose to hate homosexuality more than they like good works. Their objection to the new law is not, as they like to see it, self-defence against a meddling government. It is a threat by powerful institutions to withhold their charity out of prejudice.
Churches are free to preach that homosexuality is a sin and their followers are free to believe it in private. But the elected government of Britain does not share that view and has rightly sought to give gay citizens the same public rights as everyone else. Or at least it has done thus far. On this latest measure the cabinet is divided. Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic, is the minister responsible for the new law and is sympathetic to the idea of exempting churches. The Prime Minister is also thought to be amenable to religious petitioning…
To judge for yourself whether or not “there is no clear exemption for religious belief” read the regulations as published for Northern Ireland, from this page (which has links to the full text).
25 CommentsUpdated again Monday
The Diocese of San Joaquin today voted for a different amendment to its constitution than the one previously published.
The resolution actually passed can be seen here.
The previous proposal can be seen here.
The Associated Press reported it this way: Calif. Diocese Snubs Episcopal Church. Reuters has U.S. diocese favors break with Episcopal Church.
The Living Church says California Dioceses Take Opposing Sides on Human Sexuality.
The bishop’s address to the convention is on the diocesan site.
The New York Times has its own report on this: Episcopal Diocese Votes to Secede From Church by Laurie Goodstein in New York and Carolyn Marshall in Fresno, Calif. They write in part:
…The vote by the diocese is one more step in a carefully planned strategy by conservative Episcopalians in the United States and primates of Anglican provinces, many in the developing world, to unite the conservatives, claim the mantle of Anglicanism and isolate the Episcopal Church, the 2.3-million-member American branch in the Anglican communion, which claims 77 million members worldwide…
…The Bishop of San Joaquin, John-David Schofield, told the convention on Thursday, “This amending process is the first step in the removal from our constitution of any reference to the Episcopal Church because, in our opinion, they have decided to walk apart from the Anglican Communion.”
The wording of the resolutions was changed at the last minute, leading to widespread confusion among the delegates. But Bishop Schofield told the convention that the wording was changed after a recent meeting in Virginia between conservative American bishops and other leaders and conservative primates from other provinces in the Anglican Communion. The global primates advised the Americans to “remain flexible and allow them to provide the necessary leadership for us,” by holding off on specifying what structure, or bishop or province, would replace the church’s relationship with the diocese.
One crucial amendment effectively erases the borders of the diocese so that it could eventually absorb parishes in other parts of the state or elsewhere in the country that wish to break with the church, Mr. Petz said.
Another amendment says that if the bishop and his coadjutor bishop are absent, unable to act or removed, the standing committee, a lay group, would become the “ecclesiastical authority.” The thinking behind this provision, Mr. Petz said, is that it could prevent the church from taking over the diocese by removing the bishop and coadjutor…
Update Monday
Episcopal News Service has published its report of this: San Joaquin convention seeks to sever diocese from Episcopal Church
Stephen Tomkins is giving up Christmas for Advent, read the Guardian’s Face to Faith column.
In The Times Geza Vermes writes about The real Christmas story and Peter Townley writes about Ted Whickham in Sowing the seeds of mission on stony urban soil.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about church architecture, Ionic, Doric and Catholic.
The Church Times had this leader about the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Pope: Why they must keep talking.
3 CommentsPress release issued by the diocese:
On Friday, Dec. 1, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Peter James Lee, sent a letter to the rectors, vestries and wardens of congregations known to have engaged in a “40 Days of Discernment” program to consider their place in The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia. Some of those congregations have chosen to conclude that program with votes, to be held this month, to determine their future affiliation with the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia
In his letter, Bishop Lee highlighted that the members of those congregations are cherished members of the Diocese and the Episcopal Church, and that he and the Standing Committee hope they will decide to continue to worship as one, unified family.
“I pray you will remain in communion with your brothers and sisters in Virginia and take your full place in the life of the Diocese of Virginia,” he wrote. “Ours is a faith historically defined by our ability to bring together people with different theological emphases within traditional faith and order,” he added. Bishop Lee also stated his concern that any decision to leave the Episcopal Church will be a source of regret for future generations.
The letter also explained some of the potential legal and canonical consequences of a decision to separate from the Episcopal Church, addressing issues of property and personal liability.
“Along with the damaging effects any split would have on the Diocese as a whole and these churches in particular, we are concerned that these congregations may not fully understand the potential legal consequences of their actions,” said Russell Palmore, chancellor of the Diocese of Virginia. “The decision to leave the Diocese should be a fully informed one.”
Read the letter in full here. It includes this paragraph:
21 CommentsI remind you that absent a negotiated settlement of property, an attempt to place your congregation and its real and personal property under the authority of any ecclesial body other than the Diocese of Virginia and the bodies authorized by its canons to hold church property will have repercussions and possible civil liability for individual vestry members.
The American Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes or Anglican Communion Network has published this map, showing at the time of writing a total of 737 parishes that are said to be affiliated with them in some way.
Curiously though, the same website also says:
We are currently ten dioceses and six convocations stretching from coast to coast, border to border. As of January 2005, ACN dioceses and parishes count 200,000 Episcopal Christians in more than 800 congregations, and the number of affiliated parishes grows weekly.
The Network’s leader, Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh, recently gave an interview to the Florida Times-Union in which he stated:
“There are 10 dioceses comprising about 175,000 Episcopalians, and in those 10 dioceses are 650 congregations.”
Then Bishop Duncan says:
“Beyond those dioceses are another 350 congregations.”
By now you are right to be confused. 650 and 350 would total 1000 not 800.
Not all Episcopalians in the ten dioceses support the Network. Not all of those additional congregations are ECUSA churches — or ever were.
The Network defines three membership categories:
Other older data on the same website shows at this writing
That’s less than 250 total once the duplications within Network dioceses are removed.
Also, while I am at this, Common Cause Partners are:
American Anglican Council
Anglican Coalition in Canada
Anglican Communion Network
Anglican Essentials Canada
Anglican Mission in America
Anglican Network in Canada
Anglican Province of America
Convocation for Anglicans in North America (Church of Nigeria)
Forward in Faith North America (a duplication of the FiFNA Convocation of the Network?)
Reformed Episcopal Church
Beyond NACDAP, that’s three Canadian organizations, three “not-in-communion” churches (I include AMiA here), and the Church of Nigeria. Few out of all these congregations are “ex-ECUSA”.
So what is the right number of congregations or members for the Network itself? I would welcome better information.
8 CommentsThe ACNS has published this: Archbishop of Canterbury – Cautious welcome for TEC proposals
Update here is the LamPal copy: Archbishop – cautious welcome for TEC proposals
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has given a cautious welcome to proposals outlined by the Episcopal Church in the United States to offer alternative forms of oversight to dissenting parishes and dioceses. Dr Williams said that the proposals would contribute to the process of determining future relationships.
“The meeting in New York to consider the questions raised by requests for ‘alternative primatial oversight’ has produced some imaginative proposals which represent, potentially, a very significant development.
“I am glad to see these positive suggestions and shall be giving them careful consideration. I hope that they will mark a step forward in the long and difficult process of working out future relationships within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion in a manner faithful to the gospel requirements of forebearance and generosity.”
8 CommentsUpdated again Friday evening
The Anglican Communion Network issued a press release at 3.30 pm (EST assumed?) which was headlined National Church “Response” Falls Short and subtitled From the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The same release is also available here.
The Episcopal News Service today released a proposal responding to the request by seven Episcopal dioceses for Alternative Primatial Oversight (APO). It suggests that a “primatial vicar” be appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to serve as her “designated pastor in such dioceses.” The “primatial vicar” would be accountable to Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and perform those functions she chooses to delegate, such as episcopal ordinations.
“We are heartened that the national leadership of The Episcopal Church has realized the time has come for structural change. We will study this proposal,” said Bishop Robert Duncan, bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Anglican Communion Network. “However, at first glance what is proposed is neither primatial, nor oversight, nor is it an alternative to the spiritual authority of one who, by both teaching and action, has expressly rejected the Windsor Report and its recommendations. This is obviously not what was asked for.” Bishop Duncan also observed that what is proposed is in fact less than what was offered and rejected at the first meeting held in New York during September.
Bishop Duncan reiterated his commitment to find a mediated solution to the crisis in The Episcopal Church. “We really do want to talk about all the issues. We want to protect everyone who is unable to travel down the path the majority of The Episcopal Church has clearly chosen, not just those in dioceses that have requested APO. We want to have this conversation and find a way forward that allows all of us to get on with our mission. We are committed to remaining in the mainstream of the Anglican Communion as we proclaim the faith once delivered to the saints,” he said.
Press reports:
The Living Church had Bishops Propose Primatial Vicar for Petitioning Dioceses, and then Network Bishops Reject ‘Primatial Vicar’ Offer; Recommit to Mediated Solution.
Associated Press Rachel Zoll Episcopalians Reach Out to Conservatives
Update successive versions of this story have caused some confusion. Please read this possible explanation.
Both Jim Naughton and Sarah Dylan Breuer have commented on their blogs. SDB also here. And Mark Harris.
Stand Firm has published an email sent by Bishop Jack Iker to his Fort Worth clergy, and also a comment by David Anderson of the American Anglican Council.
Integrity responded here.
The Anglican Communion Institute responded with ACI’S PROPOSAL FOR AN INTERIM ARRANGEMENT WHILE AWAITING A CONCILIAR COMMUNION COVENANT:
17 CommentsSpeaking on a local radio station in York, the Archbishop of York has dismissed newspaper gossip that he wants to take over as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Archbishop denies Canterbury tale
What is he talking about? See here, and also here.
4 CommentsEpiscopal News Service and Anglican Communion News Service have both released Bishops develop proposal responding to ‘Appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury’.
A group of bishops, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, has developed a proposal responding to “An Appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury” addressing what other petitioning bishops and dioceses have termed “alternative primatial oversight” or “alternative primatial relationship.” Full texts of the group’s response and accompanying statement follow here.
A Response to “An Appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury”
Some bishops and dioceses of the Episcopal Church have requested that the Archbishop of Canterbury provide what they have variously called “alternative primatial oversight” or an “alternative primatial relationship.” In consultation with the Presiding Bishop, the Archbishop of Canterbury proposed that a number of bishops from the Episcopal Church meet to explore a way forward. A first meeting took place in September, and a second meeting in November developed the following proposal that seeks to address the concerns of those parishes and dioceses which for serious theological reasons feel a need for space, and to encourage them to remain within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
1. Taking seriously the concerns of the petitioning bishops and dioceses, the Presiding Bishop, in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, will appoint a Primatial Vicar in episcopal orders to serve as the Presiding Bishop’s designated pastor in such dioceses. The Primatial Vicar could preside at consecrations of bishops in these dioceses. The Primatial Vicar could also serve the dioceses involved on any other appropriate matters either at the initiative of the Presiding Bishop or at the request of the petitioning dioceses.
2. The Primatial Vicar would be accountable to the Presiding Bishop and would report to an Advisory Panel that would consist of the designee of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop’s designee, a bishop of The Episcopal Church selected by the petitioning dioceses, and the President of the House of Deputies (or designee).
3. This arrangement for a Primatial Vicar does not affect the administrative or other canonical duties of the Presiding Bishop except to the degree that the Presiding Bishop may wish to delegate, when appropriate, some of those duties to the Primatial Vicar. The Primatial Vicar and the Advisory Panel shall function in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.
4. Individual congregations who dissent from the decisions of their diocesan leadership are reminded of the availability of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight and its process of appeal.
5. This arrangement is provisional in nature, in effect for three years, beginning January 1, 2007. During that time, the Presiding Bishop is asked to monitor its efficacy and to consult with the House of Bishops and the Executive Council regarding this arrangement and possible future developments.
15 CommentsThe Bishop of San Joaquin has published his reply to the earlier letter from the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA. You can read it in full on his diocesan website or there is a PDF here which looks more likely to endure as a URL.
27 CommentsDespite the extensive scope of the “religious exemption” provided in the Northern Ireland regulations, attacks on this legislation, and on the presumed extension of it into the mainland UK, continue from the Daily Mail, from the usual conservative Christian lobby groups, but also from various Christian leaders.
The paid advertisement in The Times yesterday can be seen in full here (PDF file). The group that sponsored this is Coherent and Cohesive Voice. This is an alliance of Black church leaders (“a network of hundreds of Christian leaders in the UK representing hundreds of thousands of voters”) including many names which can be found here.
Complaints about this advertisement can be made to the Advertising Standards Authority.
This group also issued a Briefing Paper last July which can be read here. Both documents contain statements about the effect of these regulations which are just not true.
Tomorrow’s Times carries several letters to the Editor about this matter. One of them is from the Minister for Equality, Meg Munn:
Sir, The Government is seeking to strike a balance between protecting the rights of religious groups and preventing discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
This is a Government, and country, that has a proud record of tackling discrimination wherever it exists. But it is also a country that has a proud record of respecting people from all faiths and none.
No one is proposing that schools will have to promote homosexuality or that a priest will have to bless same-sex couples. But at the same time, it is wrong for gay teenagers to be refused emergency accommodation after being thrown out of their family home on the ground that they had chosen to tell their parents about their sexuality, or for lesbian and bisexual people to be denied access to essential healthcare.
MEG MUNN
Deputy Minister for
Women and Equalities
And in an interview, Meg Munn said:
16 Comments“It is right that there should be a public debate on these complex and difficult issues, but that debate should be conducted in a calm and measured way rather than through inaccurate and wild speculation.”
Update
There is an Anglican angle too: Daily Mail Steve Doughty Anglican bishop threatens to close youth clubs in protest at gay rights. And sidebar Seven out of 10 say beliefs should not be abandoned over gay rights
The bishop is Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester.
There are several reports of what RC archbishop Vincent Nichols has been saying about what he perceives as the government’s intentions in bringing in the proposed new regulations discussed here previously.
Daily Mail Steve Doughty Don’t impose your morality: Catholic Archbishop attacks gay rights bill and editorial comment Blair and the moral backlash
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Archbishop warns of gay rights backlash
Universe Church Fires Broadside Over Government’s Moral Neutrality
Catholic Herald Gay rights law threatens Catholic adoption agencies
It’s rather difficult to see what justification exists for most of these concerns. The Northern Ireland regulations are clear in providing religious bodies with an exemption from almost all the requirements placed on everybody else. The effect is that discimination by a religious organisation, in respect of sexual orientation. is permitted:
(a) if it is necessary to comply with the doctrine of the organisation; or
(b) so as to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religions followers.
which should be easy for the Roman Catholic church to meet. Charitable bodies, whether or not religious, are also exempted, provided their actions are taken by reason of or in pursuance of their charitable instrument.
The two principles from which there is no exemption provided in Northern Ireland are:
Postscript: there was a full page advertisement in The Times today placed by a group called Coherent and Cohesive Voice, self-described as “a network of hundreds of Christian leaders in the UK representing hundreds of thousands of voters”. Follow this link to read the text of the advertisement. Several claims made in the advertisement are quite false.
79 CommentsAn open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury Regarding requests for “alternative primatial oversight” has been posted here. Signatures from within ECUSA are invited.
The covering notice says:
The following letter originated from The Consultation Steering Committee, a network which includes representatives from the following organizations in The Episcopal Church: Integrity, Episcopal Urban Caucus, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Episcopal Women’s Caucus, Union of Black Episcopalians, Episcopal Ecological Network, National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, Province VIII Indigenous Ministries, Episcopal Church Publishing Company, Episcopal Network for Economic Justice, Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry Advocates, and Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission.
A further note concerning the provenance of this letter can be found here. Also:
16 CommentsAn advance copy of the letter was sent in early November to Archbishop Williams, with copies to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and to Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies. The Consultation Steering Committee will send a formal letter with signatures to the Archbishop of Canterbury after it has been available online for signatures.
First, a letter has just been released by the dioceses of Pittsburgh and Fort Worth: this copy is on the NACDAP site; another copy is on the Pittsburgh site. Fort Worth has a PDF showing the original letterhead.
Bishops Decline Invitation to Second Summit
Released by The Diocese of Fort Worth on November 27, 2006:
The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, and the Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, have declined an invitation from the Rt. Rev. Peter Lee, Bishop of Virginia, to attend a second Summit Meeting of bishops requesting Alternate Primatial Oversight with the Presiding Bishop and two co-conveners, Bishop Lee and the Rt. Rev. John Lipscomb, Bishop of Southwest Florida. In fact, none of the bishops of those dioceses that have requested APO will be attending. The proposed meeting was scheduled to begin today. The first Summit, convened at the request of the Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, was held in September at the offices of the Church Pension Group in New York City. Bishop Iker enumerated the reasons for the decision in a reply he sent to Bishop Lee on Tuesday, Nov. 21, on behalf of Bishop Duncan and himself.
Full text of the letter is here.
Second, there are reports at Fr Jake of Bp. Schofield’s Deanery Presentations. An extract:
Regarding the meeting of the Windsor bishops, Bp. Schofield claims they received a message from Archbishop Rowan Williams containing these words; ” I believe the Windsor bishops are the hope of the future of the American church. I want to encourage you and I pray that your numbers will grow.”
Regarding the recent meeting with the Steering Committee of the Global South Primates, Bp. Schofield offers us some new information. Abps. Gomez (West Indies), Venables (Southern Cone), Akinola (Nigeria), Chew (South East Asia), Nzimbi (Kenya) and Akrofi (West Africa) were present. Those representing the Network that were mentioned by name included Bps. Schofield, Salmon and Duncan and Bill Thompson of All Saints, Long Beach.
The Primates were asking for specific things of the Network;
1. Unity
2. A single spokesman (Bp. Duncan was selected)
3. Signatures on a document which will be submitted to the Primates (all present signed, although the contents of the document were not revealed.)Bp. Schofield announced that he had received a message from Bp. Duncan stating that the Primates (apparently the 6 listed above) said that they endorsed what was being proposed in San Joaquin, encouraged them to go forward with their plan to make the changes in their constitution (which eliminates all references to The Episcopal Church), but then the Primates said not to have an immediate second reading. They do not want San Joaquin to get ahead of the other dioceses. (The constitutional changes do not technically go into effect until the second reading).
According to Bp. Schofield, the Primates want to see a new Network Province set up, but not just with San Joaquin as a member. They want a number of dioceses represented. The Primates want to see San Joaquin unified with other dioceses, and willing to take direction from them. From this point on, the Primates would call the shots. San Joaquin was to go forward with the first reading and then await further instructions from the Global South Primates.
Third, Lionel Deimel has written this analysis: Unqualified Accession which deals with the question How might a diocese rationalize a right to abrogate its accession to the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church?
And for your convenience the Chapman memo is here.
16 CommentsThe penetrating analysis of the Catholic Herald interview, and its spinoffs in the Telegraph and The Times, that appeared in the Church Times, is now on public view: Press: What Dr Williams didn’t mean by Andrew Brown.
Everyone who has followed the story of women priests knows that every archbishop has to pretend that there is a chance that the decision to ordain women might be reversed. That is the figleaf of “reception”, which allows Forward in Faith and Reform, in their turn, to pretend to be part of the Church of England.
You may think that this is a silly bargain, but it is the one that the Synod and the Church as a whole have signed up to. This is well understood by all the journalists who, despite that, wrote last week’s story as if it were significantly true: Ruth Gledhill, Jonathan Petre, and its originator, Damian Thompson. They all covered the vote in 1992. Ruth, on her blog, and Jonathan, in the course of his story, made it quite clear that they saw no truth in their own headlines.
Much of the Catholic Herald material has rotated off its website. But you can still find the interview itself here (third URL since inception).
Update
And also, there was this article by Damian Thompson which appeared in the Guardian No wonder the Archbishop of Canterbury chose to speak to us. For background on another Catholic Herald columnist go here.
Another item from the BBC Sunday radio programme:
New think tank for animal rights opens
What rights, if any, do animals have? What’s described as the world’s first academy, to enhance the ethical status of animals, opens in Britain tomorrow. The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics will act as an international think tank with its own online course, research initiatives and publications. It’s focusing in particular on the relationship between animal abuse and human violence. More than 100 academics from ten countries have agreed to become advisers in an attempt to put animals on the intellectual agenda. But, with many conflicting views on such issues as experimentation and organic farming, how effective will the centre be? Mike Ford reports from Oxfordshire.
Listen (6m 9s)
BBC Religion & Ethics – Animal ethics
The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics
Evening Standard Think tank aims to spark animal ethics debate
There is also a Church Times report about this which I will link when it becomes public.
Earlier in the week, there was this Daily Telegraph news story by Andrew Pierce Williams may quit over ‘criticism from Carey’ and this comment piece by Damian Thompson The archbishop’s days are numbered.
This article appeared in the Sunday Telegraph today:
I support Rowan: we are working together by George Carey.
The November Fulcrum newsletter has also appeared this week in the Church of England Newspaper. It is titled
Splitters United or Patient Pressure? by Graham Kings.
The Splitters reference is to Truro Church and The Falls Church. Fulcrum thinks they and anyone else should stay and participate in the making of an Anglican covenant.
1 CommentSeveral reports today of new academic research:
BBC Church ‘in need of women priests’
Reuters Women priests given “dregs” in Church of England
Press Association Women priests ‘could save Church’
Economic & Social Research Council press release Women priests will ‘save church from sinking’