Year: 2007

The Panel of Reference has always had a very limited primary brief – “to

supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches” for a dissenting

group within its diocesan or provincial life. The Panel has now been operating for close to two years. It has received five references, of which three have remained within the Panel’s brief, and two were recalled by the Archbishop. All three reports have been published, and it has no further references from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon said recently that the Anglican Consultative Council is uniquely poised to be an instrument of reconciliation, adding that he was encouraged by the conversations underway “where people have been engaged in dialogue in a public way across what looked like an irreconcilable divide.”