The Rev. Francisco Silva, Secretary General of the Anglican Church of Brazil (IEAB), reports on the recent meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica of the Latin American and Caribbean Anglican Bishops. They have issued a Statement on the Anglican Communion. Silva writes that some of the more important points that characterize the Anglican tradition were reaffirmed. Some of the highlights:
We exhorted our Communion to preserve its partaking nature, diversified, wide and inclusive, characteristics that we consider essential to our Tradition and that constitute our main contribution to the Christian tradition.
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At our meeting fellowship, we perceived that we defend different positions on the issues that today are discussed within our Communion. However, we also experienced our plurality and diversity like wealth and growth sources, and not as controversy and division causes.
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We invite all our brothers and sisters in the bishopric, as well as to all the clergy members and lay people that are identified with this vision, to unite us to work indeed by the reconciliation, interdependence and unit in the diversity in our faith family, and thus to preserve the valuable legacy of which we are trustees and guardians.
This Statement constitutes in an innequivocal (sic) call to the whole Communion to overcome the intolerance and rediscover the richness of our diversity. Distinct perceptions concerning the human sexuality are not essential to define who is or not ortodox. We cannot let the fundamentalism destroy the Spirit – who is dynamic and updates every time and every generation the God’s project for the world.
The Anglican Communion survival – if it still exists – will depend on our capacity of recovering the unity in the diversity. We are responsible in continue Jesus’s ministry who always welcomed all people. We need remind that orthodoxy became the biggest opponent of Jesus de Nazaré and the fundamentalism condemned it!
Read it all at Kantinho Do Rev.