American Bishop Michael Curry, presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church, is to receive the 2019 Sandford St Martin Trustees’ Award in recognition of the huge media impact generated by his royal wedding sermon which helped to bring a better understanding of religious belief and its modern relevance to a new audience.
As the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Hong Kong ended, the Gafcon Primates Council issued a communique at the close of their rival gathering. In it they announced, “we have decided to call together a meeting of bishops of the Anglican Communion in June of 2020.”
The resolution was judged to have been accepted by general, verbal consent, but Oklahoma Bishop Konieczny, supported by more than one third of the members, asked for a counted vote, and it was found to have been defeated by 43 votes to 35, with 8 abstentions.
The weeklong effort by Oklahoma Bishop Ed Konieczny to have ACC speak on LGBTQ people ended in negotiated measure.
“The Anglican Consultative Council notes with concern the pattern of invitations to the Lambeth Conference 2020 and requests that the Archbishop of Canterbury as a focus of unity ensures that a listening process is put in place with supportive and independent facilitation in order to hear the concerns and voices of people especially those who have felt themselves marginalized with regard to sexuality.”
Dr Idowu-Fearon asked directly: “How should we respond to GAFCON?” He spoke of “deliberate ignorance”: “When you see a Primate, when you see a bishop, who knows that this is what it means to be an Anglican Church . . . and he pretends that he doesn’t, that’s very frustrating.”Anglican polity, he said, involved consultation between bishops, clergy, and laity. “But I’m sharing with you that, in a good number of our provinces and dioceses, particularly in the Global South, there are no debates.
Accepting observer status means acknowledging the reality that ACNA isn’t in the Anglican Communion.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has declared that the Anglican Consultative Council cannot debate his decision to exclude from Lambeth Conference the spouses of bishops in non-heterosexual marriages.
“I had to take what is a really difficult and painful decision to say, in order for the conference to be as representative as possible and get all the bishops there and not have the risk of some provinces not coming….” – Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury
Council determined that the University shall ensure that accommodation will be available on campus for those spouses affected by this decision who wish to be in Canterbury with their partners during the conference period. … The Council also agreed that Sir David Warren, Chair of Council, and Professor Karen Cox, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Kent, would seek to meet with the Lambeth Conference organisers and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to bring Council’s concerns to their attention and discuss the issues.
“We certainly do not want to exclude the unique witness of Bishop Mary and her ministry from those debates and deliberations. So, not without mixed feelings, we the bishops of New York will be attending the Lambeth Conference….at this time it is the intention of Becki Sander to accompany Bishop Mary to England, though she will not be permitted to participate in the Lambeth conversations and activities.” – The bishops of the Diocese of New York