Although the meeting has yet to begin, writers are priming their coverage with dire predictions of what the Archbishop of Canterbury will demand at his first visit to an Episcopal Church meeting. Originally invited by the Bishops to listen to the experience of The Episcopal Church (TEC), most reporters believe that the Archbishop will come to tell TEC what to do or else.
Where is the voice of the Church in mid Africa that says the Church is appalled by the level of hate-mongering in the press, by the statements of those bishops who are quoted, by the general willingness to publish without objection remarks that homosexual persons are unfit to live, deserving to be punished and an abomination?
Archbishop Rowan Williams or his staff asked to meet us confidentially, but that is normal for any invitation from the Consultation in order to protect our safety. There is a Eucharist as an integral part of every Consultation meeting and ++Rowan is simply joining us and
participating as our Archbishop in our normal programme.
According to Morgan, a member of the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, “The original intention of a Covenant to affirm the bonds of affection, was good. The indications now are that many see it as a contract, a means of ensuring a uniform view on human sexuality enforceable by the threat of exclusion from the Communion if one does not conform. I certainly do not want to sign up to that kind of Covenant.”
Ekklesia reports that a delegation from a group called The Elders will go to Darfur on a peace mission. The Elders are retired statesmen organized
“I do not believe,” says Bishop Duncan Gray, “as I’ve said to many of you previously, that this gathering of the House of Bishops is a final ‘line in the sand’ moment. It is a part of a process that will help us to discern, in the words of the Windsor Report, the ‘highest degree of communion possible’ within our Anglican Communion.”
While the world turns its media magnifying lenses towards this week’s Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans, I advise us to look elsewhere for the broader life of the Episcopal Church. … I believe the breadth and grace of the Episcopal Church exists more specifically in the thousands of parishes and communities of faith which those bishops serve.
Good Jesu, too late have I loved thee, nor ever yet have I wholly followed thee; make me now at last wholly to love thee, and out of the fullness of thine infinite love give me all the love I might have had, had I always loved thee.
“From where I stand,” says Joan Chittister, “we need those who can develop a model of faith in times of uncertainty in which the tradition is revered and the prophetic is honored. Unless we want to see ourselves go into either tyranny or anarchy, we better pray for the Anglicans so that they can show us how to do that.”