Archbishop Rowan Williams: "Despite challenges, Anglican Communion life is strong"

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

Archbishop Rowan Williams: "Despite challenges, Anglican Communion 
life is strong".

Posted On : October 20, 2010 10:03 AM | Posted By : Admin ACO

ACNS: 
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2010/10/20/ACNS4741

> Related Categories: Lambeth

The mutual life of the Anglican Communion is "quite strong and perhaps
getting stronger" according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan 
Williams.

In an interview with The Hindu newspaper, Dr Williams indicated that
the state of the Communion was not as black as some have painted it.
He called it "a very mixed picture."

"I think that after the Lambeth Conference of 2008 many people felt
that we found ways of talking to one another, and perhaps exercising
some restraint and tact towards one another," he said, "and it was
very significant that at the next meeting of the Anglican primates,
which was in the early part of 2009, all major Churches of the
Communion were represented.

"Unfortunately, the situation does not remain there. The decision of
the American Church to go forward, as it has, with the ordination of a
lesbian bishop has, I think, set us back. At the moment I'm not
certain how we will approach the next primates' meeting, but
regrettably some of the progress that I believe we had made has not
remained steady.

"Alongside that, and I think this is important, while the institutions
of the Communion struggle, in many ways the mutual life of the
Communion, the life of exchange and co-operation between different
parts of our Anglican family, is quite strong and perhaps getting
stronger. It's a paradox.

"We are working more closely together on issues of development than we
did before. We have the emergence of an Anglican health network across
the globe, bringing together various health care institutions. We have
also had quite a successful programme on the standards and criteria
for theological education across the Communion. So, a very mixed 
picture."

In the interview, given in the last days of his two-week visit to
India, the Archbishop also addresses questions on relations with the
Catholic church, Anglican-Hindu dialogue and the 'war on terror'.

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