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Australia

Archbishop Peter Carnley AO, Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia:

A Profile

from Margaret Rodgers

The Most Reverend Peter Carnley AO, Archbishop of Perth was elected Primate
of the Anglican Church of Australia on Thursday 3 February. He was elected
by a Primatial Election Board comprising all Diocesan bishops and twelve
members of each of the Houses of Clergy and Laity who were elected by the
General Synod. Archbishop Carnley is only the second West Australian to
become Primate this century. The first was Archbishop Henry Frewen Le Fanu
who was Primate from 1935 to 1946.

A man of warmth and intellectual vigour, Peter Carnley's face lights up when
he talks with passion of his hobby of growing tulips at his farm at Naanup
near Margaret River in Western Australia. His favourite is the beautiful
long stemmed black tulip, Queen of the Night.

This Primatial result was a surprise to many in the Church who saw the
election as a struggle between "the two Peters", and most predicted that
Archbishop Peter Hollingworth from Brisbane would emerge as Archbishop Keith
Rayner's successor to the Australian Primacy. But through the four ballots
on the day, Archbishop Hollingworth was eliminated on the third ballot, and
Archbishop Carnley defeated Archbishop Harry Goodhew from Sydney by 24 votes
to 17 in the final ballot. Archbishop Goodhew had received the most votes of
all candidates in the first two ballots and when it came to the final
decision, the fact that he will be retiring in March 2001 on his seventieth
birthday influenced some electors.

Archbishop Carnley is regarded as the leading theologian amongst the bishops
of the Anglican Church of Australia and he chairs many of the Nation Church
groups which have a theological enquiry at their base. He is presently Chair
of both the Doctrinal Panel and the Panel set up to prepare a report for the
next General Synod in 2001 on issues for the Church relating to human
sexuality. He is a member of the Women's Bishops group who are also
preparing a report for the General Synod. He says he may have to offload
many of these posts now he is the Primate.

He is firmly opposed to lay presidency but believes that the Church at large
needs to continue discussion on the matter and to listen and hear the
arguments of those from the Diocese of Sydney who advocate this change in
traditional Anglican liturgical practice.

Archbishop Carnley has also been involved in some major activities of the
Anglican Communion. He was a member of the Inter Anglican Theological and
Doctrinal Commission and drafted some sections of the Virginia Report that
deals with the 'instruments of unity' within the Anglican Communion. He was
a member of the Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate that
prepared the Eames Report for the Anglican Communion.

Asked of his opinion of the recent consecration in Singapore of two bishops
for the American Church by Archbishops Tay and Kolini and others, Archbishop
Carnley described their action as 'wicked.' He said such 'vagrant' bishops
are irregular and unlawful within Anglicanism.

It seems that, as a Province of the Anglican Communion, the Anglican Church
of Australia will soon be encouraged by its Primate to give serious
consideration to the issues emerging from the document The Gift of Authority
which was issued recently by the Anglican and Roman Catholic International
Commission. He stated that the issue of the 'universal Primacy' is important
for Anglicans to examine since he believes there may be a role for such a
voice in world Christendom. But alongside this he believes that the
structure of decision making centred around the Bishop-in-Synod, including
the laity, is a gift of genius from Anglicanism and that this is also an
important model for the Roman Catholic world to contemplate and develop to
remove from it the structure of a remote, lone voice issuing decrees and
laying down practice from far away on the other side of the world.

There was a suggestion from a few participants at the Anglican Consultative
Council meeting in Dundee, Scotland last September that Lambeth Conferences
should be no more and that there should be Anglican Congresses held in their
place. While he would support the idea of an Anglican Congress that included
bishops, clergy and lay people, Archbishop Carnley stressed that he does not
subscribe to any view that this model of Anglican gathering should replace
the Lambeth Conferences, which he believes are important for consultation
and collegiality among the bishops of the Communion.

On the somewhat inflammatory topic of human sexuality Archbishop Carnley
said again that he is of the opinion that there are many conversations still
to take place. He instanced the level of agreement emerging in the
discussions of the Australian national groups that includes two theologians
from the Diocese of Sydney. Archbishop Carnley dislikes the use of the term
'homosexual marriage' and prefer to cast the discussion in terms of
'friendship'. He says that the boundaries of friendship and the limits of
touch need to be carefully explored.

Peter Carnley will not go to the Primates' meeting in Portugal in March
ready to confront ECUSA but he will call for more conversation and listening
from all sides of the debates. He will not support the concept of a second
province within the American Church for bringing it close to home he will
reject such a notion when it comes to discussions within the Anglican Church
of Australia on lay presidency and women bishops.

Peter Carnley was awarded a Lucas Tooth Scholarship in 1966 that enabled him
to undertake doctoral research at Cambridge University. The topic of his
Cambridge doctoral thesis was "The Notion of Historical Memory in the
Theology of John Knox" which was a study in philosophical theology of the
insights of the North American New Testament scholar, John Knox, concerning
"the Church and her memory of Jesus".

He returned to Australia to lecture in Systematic and Philosophical Theology
in the University of Queensland and he was Warden of St John's College. He
was elected Archbishop of Perth in 1981.

Contemplating the role of a Primate he said that it includes "explaining the
part to the whole and the whole to the part." He says, for example, that as
Australian Primate he will stress to the Anglican World that the Diocese of
Sydney is not the ogre it is portrayed to be and that its arguments on
various issues such as lay presidency need to be heard and understood. But
he says that the Diocese of Sydney must also be encouraged to play its full
part in the relationships and discussions of the Anglican Communion.

Archbishop Carnley said that the greatest problem facing the Australian
Church is not issues such as human sexuality, women bishops and lay
presidency. It is rather the decline in Church attendance as evidenced by
the national Church Life survey statistics. Arresting this decline will be a
prime focus from him during his primacy.

Peter Carnley is married to Ann who is a chaplain at a WA State Primary
School. They have a son, Benedict, and a daughter, Sarah.

Margaret Rodgers
CEO, Anglican Media Sydney
http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/