The most intriguing story on the wires at the moment comes from Australia, but there are also dispatches from the Associated Press, which quotes from the Day 1 item down blog a bit, Reuters and the Press Association.
Updates: The Washington Post’s curtain-raiser is here, and it suggest that host Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana might play a key role in the proceedings. The hometown Times-Picayune (one of the best newspaper names going) offers a wrap up of day one.
The news organization previously known as Agence France Press also gets into the act. Their story includes some interesting quotes from the president of the Berkeley Divinity School (which is an Episcopal seminary) at Yale, but it misidentifies him as the president of the Yale Divinity School. (Which is not an Episcopal seminary.) The report also confuses Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney with Archbishop Philip Aspinall, the primate of Australia. Williams enjoys an excellent relationship with the latter.
Archbishop Peter Akinola is also making himself heard. He has spoken with the only Western reporter he knows he can count on. He has been very selective since this disastrous encounter with The New York Times, which began:
The way he tells the story, the first and only time Archbishop Peter J. Akinola knowingly shook a gay person’s hand, he sprang backward the moment he realized what he had done.
But back to the story from Australia. It is based on an interview with Archbishop Aspinall, given just before he left for New Orleans:
The Primate of the Anglican Church in Australia, Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Brisbane, said the mood within the Anglican Communion was one of reconciliation where the vast majority of them were seeking a middle-way to deal with the homosexuality issue that is threatening to break the Communion apart.
In an interview with the Religion Report, broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Archbishop Aspinall talked about the need to find a ‘constructive step’ to resolve the debate on the subject of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex partnership, noting this problem could not be fixed instantly with one solution.
“…No-one is expecting a quick fix and once-and-for-all solution for all time from the meeting this week in the United States. Rather we hope that in conversation and prayer and mutual discernment, we might be able to see constructive next steps,” he said
Aspinall was in the thick of the negotiations in Dar es Salaam. He will be in the thick of things in New Orleans as well. Contrast his tone with that of Archbishop Akinola. They don’t seem to be summarizing the same situation. So who has the better grip?