wfn.org | ACNS Secretary General lays out next steps following the Archbishop of Canterbury?s Pentecost letter

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Secretary General lays out next steps following the Archbishop of Canterbury?s 
Pentecost letter

Posted On : June 7, 2010 4:24 PM | Posted By : Webmaster
ACNS: http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2010/6/7/ACNS4707
Related Categories: ACO

Most of you will have read the recent letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury to 
the Anglican Communion on the subject of Pentecost.  Part of that letter 
addresses the current and ongoing tensions in the Anglican Communion ? these 
tensions cluster around the three moratoria referred to in the Windsor  Report.

It was hoped to have held the gracious restraint requested on many occasions by 
the Instruments of Communion until the Covenant had been considered in-depth by 
all of the provinces.  The Covenant outlines a process whereby major issues 
before the Communion which affect its common life can be considered properly 
and appropriately within the community of faith.  However, the recent Episcopal 
election in Los Angeles has created a situation where the Archbishop has been 
forced to act before the Covenant has been considered by most provinces.

So the Archbishop of Canterbury has made the following proposals in his 
Pentecost Letter which  spell out the consequences of this action:

?I am therefore proposing that, while these tensions remain unresolved, members 
of such provinces ? provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House 
of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the 
Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and 
the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order
(IASCUFO) ? should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the 
Communion is formally engaged. I am further proposing that members of such 
provinces serving on IASCUFO should for the time being have the status only of 
consultants rather than full members?.

Last Thursday I sent letters to members of the Inter Anglican ecumenical 
dialogues who are from the Episcopal Church informing them that their 
membership of these dialogues has been discontinued.  In doing so I want to 
emphasise again as I did in those letters the exceptional service of each and 
every person to that important work and to acknowledge without exception the 
enormous contribution each person has made.

I have also written to the person from the Episcopal Church who is a member of 
the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), 
withdrawing that person?s membership and inviting her to serve as a Consultant 
to that body.

I have written to the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada to ask whether 
its General Synod or House of Bishops has formally adopted policies that breach 
the second moratorium in the Windsor Report, authorising public rites of 
same-sex blessing.

At the same time I have written to the Primate of the Southern Cone, whose 
interventions in other provinces are referred to in the Windsor Continuation 
Group Report asking him for clarification as to the current state of his 
interventions into other provinces.

These are the actions which flow immediately from the Archbishop?s Pentecost 
Letter.

Looking forward, there are two questions in this area which I would like to see 
addressed:  One is the relationship between the actions of a bishop or of a 
diocese and the responsibilities of a province for those actions ? this issue 
is referred to in the Windsor Continuation Group Report para 48.

Secondly, to ask the question of whether maintaining within the fellowship of 
one?s Provincial House of Bishops, a bishop who is exercising episcopal 
ministry in another province without the expressed permission of that province 
or the local bishop, constitutes an intervention  and is therefore a breach of 
the third moratorium.

> The Revd Canon Kenneth Kearon.