The Living Church is reporting that the Archbishop of Canterbury has invited Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, to attend a special session of the Primates Meeting to be held on Wednesday February 14 in Tanzania. Duncan has accepted.
Another Episcopal bishop, as yet unnamed, will also receive an invitation, the magazine reports.
This is a great public relations victory for Duncan and the Network, and the archbishop has to be aware of that.
I will be eager to see whether bishops other than Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem will find a voice now, or whether the silent purple legion that leads us will remain mum.
(Mark Harris has a few thoughts on the subject.)
On what may be a related matter, the Church Times is reporting that Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, is at odds with the archbishop over his treatment of the Episcopal Church. The article notes that Kearon sent the archbishop recent criticisms voiced by Bishop Marshall.
“Sadly, it’s very accurate, and is almost the script for a very difficult meeting I had with him last Wednesday,” Kearon wrote in an email to Integrity founder Louie Crew of the Diocese of Newark. “We discussed absolute limits of appeasement, and also how a future direction might be identified.”
“More cryptically,” the story continues “he ends his email: ‘Advisers (and sadly I’m not one of them) are at the heart of this.’ ”