Riazat Butt of the Guardian describes a few of the bishops who are not attending Lambeth and why. Meanwhile, at least one Nigerian bishop and one Kenyan bishop have defied their archbishops and are going to Lambeth anyway. In other news, Greg Venables, primate of the Southern Cone has revealed that Bishop John-David Schofield will not be attending.
Butt has a brief paragraph on the following (as she lists them):
The Archbishop of Nigeria, the Most Rev Peter Akinola
The Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev Peter Jensen
The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali
The Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Rev Henry Luke Orombi
Martyn Minns
Minns won’t be far away. He is going to be on vacation in Britain and so will be nearby Lambeth, as Time magazine once said, “just in case he’s needed.” And remember at GAFCON when Archbishops Orombi and Akinola could not bring themselves to condemn anti-gay violence in their countries, it was left to Archbishop Jensen to say the right things to the press.
While Orombi and Akinola are staying home, we have reports that at least two bishops, one from Kenya and the other from Nigeria, are attending Lambeth anyway.
+Beneah Okumu of Mumias, Kenya is listed as a pre-Lambeth visiting bishop in the diocese of St Asaph. He is on the list of bishops on the Church of Wales website. (thanks to MJ commenting on TA).
The other bishop is the Right Rev Cyril Okorocha, the Bishop of Owerri, as we noted earlier.
The Guardian: Riazatt Butt– Lambeth Conference: The Absentees.
ACNS currently puts the number of bishops expected at 650, or more than 75%.
According to the Diocese of San Joaquin, Southern Cone, Archbishop Greg Venables reveals, that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has written that John-David Schofield has declined his invitation to the Lambeth Conference:
“I understand that Bishop John-David Schofield has been accepted as a full member of the episcopal fellowship of the Province of the Southern Cone within the Anglican Communion and as such cannot be regarded as having withdrawn from the Anglican Communion. However, it is acknowledged that his exact status (especially given the complications surrounding the congregations associated with him) remains unclear on the basis of the general norms of Anglican Canon Law, and this constitutes one of the issues on which we hope for assistance from the Windsor Continuation Group. Bishop Schofield has elected to decline the invitation to the Lambeth Conference issued to him last year although that decision does not signal any withdrawal from the Communion. I hope there may be further careful reflection to clarify the terms on which he will exercise his ministry.”
Read it all here.
Mark Harris comments here.
Bishop Venables is slip sliding away with the language of a carefully crafted statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury, turning a letter that said nothing about the people of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin and nothing very positive about Bishop Schofield into a lauding of both.