From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org


Conservative Episcopal primates meeting


From ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)
Date 17 Dec 1999 10:20:47

For more information contact:
Episcopal News Service
Kathryn McCormick
kmccormick@dfms.org
212/922-5383
http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens

99-188

Conservative primates open the way for action against 'liberal' 
provinces

by Kathryn McCormick

     (ENS) A group of conservative primates agreed at a mid-
November meeting in Kampala, Uganda, to voice their dismay at the 
Primates' Meeting scheduled in March in Lisbon, Portugal at what 
they see as some province's rejection of Anglican orthodoxy..

     In a statement following the meeting, held from November 16 
through 18, the primates said, "We will carefully document and 
commend a proposal to this meeting in Portugal which, we believe, 
will address the problems in our Communion caused by misuse of 
provincial autonomy and innovations exceeding the limits of our 
Anglican diversity. In this we will be acting upon Resolution 
III.6(b) Lambeth '98."

     That resolution asks that the Primates' Meeting assume 
responsibility for intervening "in cases of exceptional 
emergency" in provinces unable to resolve problems on their own 
and for giving guidelines on the limits of diversity in 
submitting to the authority of Holy Scripture and loyalty to 
Anglican "tradition and formularies."

     The primates said they would seek agreement on and the 
progressive implementation of measures to "ensure a return to 
historic standards for ordination, moral and marriage disciplines 

where in our communion these have been notoriously breached." 
The primates have now met twice to discuss the problems they feel 
have been caused by liberals in the U.S., Canada and Scotland.

     Rejecting for now a bid by First Promise, a group working to 
see that conservative Anglicans gain their own bishops, the 
primates nonetheless said, "We hear and understand what you have 
told us about examples of abandonment of Anglican teaching, 
discipline and practices in the provinces from which you come. We 
share your distress on account of the damage and harmful results 
of these increasingly serious developments."

     Further, they assured conservatives "that among us are those 
ready to respond to specific and urgent situations which may 
arise in the months before the Primates' Meeting….Parishes and 
clergy under threat because of their loyalty to the Gospel and to 
Anglican standards must be supported and we will play our part in 
such support."

     They did not say what actions they might take.

     Bishop James Stanton of Dallas, head of the American 
Anglican Council and an observer at the Kampala meeting, asked 
the primates there not to take precipitate action, according to a 
report in the Church Times, the weekly newspaper of the Church of 
England.

     The newspaper quoted him as saying, "First Promise were 
eager to get on with alternative jurisdiction. Our position has 
been that while we believe there are great difficulties in ECUSA, 
particularly with some liberal bishops running roughshod over 
their people, we felt that whatever actions taken had to be in 
unison. What Lambeth called for was action by the primates as a 
whole."

     He said all plans were based on goodwill and, according to 
the newspaper, argued that the American bishops were eager to 
support Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, who was working to 
ensure a time of jubilee in the American church.

     Attending the Kampala meeting were primates of Rwanda, 
Uganda, Congo, Burundi, South East Asia, Tanzania, the Southern 
Cone of America, and representatives of the Sudan and Kenya. 

--Kathryn McCormick is associate director of News and Information 
for the Episcopal Church.


Browse month . . . Browse month (sort by Source) . . . Advanced Search & Browse . . . WFN Home