The Rev. Scott Gunn of the diocese of Rhode Island is blogging for InclusiveChurch from the meeting in Tanzania. In a recent entry he mentions that there will be a 7 p.m. press briefing each night during the meeting. That’s 11 a. m. EST. His blog will be worth watching.
A recent post includes this:
The Anglican Communion staffers are saying confidently that the question of +Katharine and +John Sentamu being seated is settled. Rumblings around the pool are different. We’ll hear what happens, I guess. Either way, there’s a story tomorrow. Either +Katharine is accepted by all the primates, or she’s sent off. Details as they come tomorrow.
As one senior person put it to me today, speaking about the conservative block, “If they don’t like it, they can take their hats and go home.” Indeed. He was saying that +Rowan and +Katharine are here to stay, and like it or leave it. Amen.
So the most interesting thing at the briefing, to me at least, was Gregory Cameron’s background briefing to reporters. Knowing that many of the press in attendance are either local press or service beat reporters, he thought it wise to give some background. I agree whole-heartedly with this thinking. He explained the situation in the Anglican Communion since about 2003. I’ll skip the play-by-play, but I’ll observe that it seemed to be point-for-point right out of an Anglican Communion Network backgrounder. For example, the Panel of Reference was described as a solution to North American problems, not as an adjudication of communion-wide disputes. No explicit mention was made of jurisdicational boundary crossings until yours truly asked about them in relation to Windsor Compliance. It was stated that because of the “delicate” situation in North America, it was not appropriate to ask that these Windsor infractions cease immediately. Really? So should the Bishop of New Hampshire or some other bishop start to cross boundaries to care for gay or lesbian Nigierians? Somehow I think the situation will be viewed differently in that light. Sigh.