Lambeth bishops air differing views on covenant

Suggested suspension of same-sex blessings also contentious
By Solange De Santis, August 02, 2008

(Episcopal News Service, Canterbury) - Anglican bishops meeting at the Lambeth Conference on August 2 said there were passionate disagreements about aspects of a developing covenant designed to hold together churches with theological differences ...

In terms of sacrifices that member Anglican provinces might make, <Archbishop Paul Kwong, primate of Hong Kong,> used the example of the Hong Kong church, where a bishop in the 1940s ordained a woman, the Rev. Florence Li Tim-Oi, but revoked the ordination due to protests that ordination of women was not allowed. Tim-Oi waited until female ordination was allowed in some provinces in the 1970s to resume her ministry in holy orders ...

Several bishops said the most contentious area of the St. Andrew's Draft of the covenant is an appendix that suggests a procedure for churches that breach the covenant. There are various bureaucratic options involving the Archbishop of Canterbury and a group of assessors but in the end, wrote Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, "if a church exercises its autonomy to reject a request made to it … then a decision has to be made whether rejecting the request amounts to abandoning the commitments of the covenant." Gomez is chair of the Covenant Design Group ...

However, Bishop Marc Andrus of Diocese of California -- where the Supreme Court recently ruled that marriage is open to gays -- said that a moratorium "is a non-starter for me." He also noted that in relation to the other part of the moratoria -- ending incursions into other churches -- "the main perpetuators of the incursions are not present so <it's difficult> for me to make an agreement on moratoria on that basis ...

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_99685_ENG_HTM.htm

It's good, good stuff.

And he's right. First off, each church is autonomous, and that's really important. I don't think we should even talk about relinquishing that. And secondly, as the bishop says, the players causing all the difficulties have absented themselves from Lambeth. Since what they've done is already totally against Anglican tradition, there's no reason to believe that any number of new "covenants" will persuade them to stop their uncursions into other provinces.

After two weeks of the "indaba" form of consultation, he essentially put his authority, such as it is, behind the various conservative efforts to reign in the liberal Episcopal church, through endorsement of these new regulatory bodies, all of whose architects are the conservatives from other countries. Our views are not represented.

The issue that generated the need for a covenant, which we have never needed before, is our church ordaining gay clergy, which has been going on for a long time. The entire issue is propelled by homophobic bigotry.

It is no other province or synods business who we ordain. Rowan is now the chief enabler of the reactionary wing of the Anglican communion. We need leadership from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and we don't have it.

declared that they'd continue to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples no matter what the official policy was. I'm sure they're not alone.