UPDATE: ENS (Episcopal News Service) has a clear report on the back and forth. Highly recommended especially if our post is obtuse. A snippet:
Two Anglican Communion leaders and some outgoing members of theAnglican Consultative Council are at odds about what exactly happened on the last full day of last month’s ACC-16 meeting in Lusaka, Zambia.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said that the council passed a resolution accepting the so-called “consequences” called for in January by a majority of the primates – leaders of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces – for the Episcopal Church’s decision to allow same-sex marriage. However, some ACC members dispute that interpretation.
The latest two chapters in the continuing disagreement opened May 6 when six outgoing ACC and Standing Committee members released a statement saying the council did not accept or endorse those consequences. The statement also said that the ACC imposed no additional consequences.
…
Welby declined a request from Episcopal News Service to comment on the ACC members’ statement. However, during the evening of May 8, Bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Anglican Communion secretary general, rejected the statement.
May 10: The Anglican Journal (Canada) has picked up the ENS report.
The ping pong between principals over the interpretation of the Walking Together resolution passed at the recent Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka continues.
ACNS (Anglican Communion News Service) Sunday posted Anglican Communion Office Secretary General rejects criticism over Walking Together resolution. The “criticism” Archbishop Idowu-Fearon “rejects” came in a statement from the outgoing Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council.
In their statement the standing committee clarified its understanding of the resolution which “received” the Archbishop of Canterbury’s (ABC) report to the ACC on the primates communique which laid out “consequences” for the Episcopal Church. In its clarification the six members of the standing committee wrote,
In receiving the Archbishop of Canterbury’s formal report of the Primates’ Gathering and Meeting, ACC16 neither endorsed nor affirmed the consequences contained in the Primates’ Communique…. No consequences were imposed by the ACC and neither was the ACC asked to do so.
The “clarification” is at odds with the ABC’s interpretation of the resolution. Prior to the issuance of the standing committee’s clarification the ABC wrote,
By receiving my report, which incorporated the Primates’ Communique, the ACC accepted these consequences entirely, neither adding to nor subtracting from them. There was no attempt during the Meeting to increase the consequences or to diminish them…. So much for that issue, which has been much distorted in comments since the end of the ACC.
Over a week earlier at the conclusion of ACC-Lusaka the ABC spoke with ACNS and said,
“The actions of the ACC demonstrate that it is working in close collaboration with the Primates, as has been the aim since both started and is set out especially in Resolution 52 of the Lambeth Conference 1988,” Archbishop Welby said.
“Given that my report, referred to in the resolution, incorporated the Communiqué and was very explicit on consequences; the resolution clearly supports and accepts all the Primates’ Meeting conclusions.
“No member of the Episcopal Church stood for office in the ACC or Standing Committee. The consequences of the Primates meeting have been fully implemented.”
The GAFCON* primates did not take the ACC’s resolution as acceptance of the consequences. In their post-ACC communique they took the position that consequences were not enforced and the ACC was damaged as an instrument of unity.
The members of Episcopal Church attending ACC-Lusaka stated as the meeting wrapped up that
ACC members seemed to have little energy for answering the primates’ call for consequences, for discussing disagreements over human sexuality, or for taking up the call of Anglican Communion Secretary-General Josiah Idowu-Fearon to pursue the Anglican Covenant. Yesterday, in fact, a resolution that sought to pursue further consequences against The Episcopal Church was withdrawn just before it was scheduled for debate.
These reports prompted a tweet from a member of the Anglican Communion Office. (Follow link above.)
And April 18th Episcopal News Service had Anglican Consultative Council declines to go along with ‘consequences.
*GAFCON = Global Anglican Future Conference