UGANDA: Archbishop Orombi expresses concerns about Standing Committee
Episcopal News Service. April 9, 2010 [040910-03]
Matthew Davies
Archbishop Henry Orombi of the Anglican Church of Uganda has written a three-page letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams raising concerns that the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion has assumed "enhanced responsibility" and expressing his dismay that its membership includes representatives from the U.S.-based Episcopal Church.
Orombi's letter comes two months after Middle East President Bishop Mouneer Anis tendered his resignation from the Standing Committee, saying that his presence has "no value whatsoever" and that his voice is "like a useless cry in the wilderness."
Orombi's letter was ambiguous about whether or not he also had resigned his membership on the Standing Committee. "I stand with my brother Primate, Bishop Mouneer Anis, in his courageous decision to resign from the Standing Committee," he said. But according to the Rev. Canon Alison Barfoot, Orombi's assistant for international relations, "Archbishop Henry supports Bishop Mouneer in resigning from the [Standing Committee], but Archbishop Henry has not himself resigned. 'I stand with my brother primate' means he supports his decision. My apologies for the confusion."
Orombi was elected in February 2007 by his fellow primates to represent Africa on the Standing Committee, but he has not attended any of its meetings. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected at the same Dar es Salaam meeting to represent the Americas on the Standing Committee and has attended every subsequent meeting. Bishop-elect Ian Douglas of Connecticut was elected to serve on the Standing Committee during the May 2009 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. He attended the following meeting of the committee Dec. 15-18 in London.
The Standing Committee usually meets annually but has met biannually for the past three years. It oversees the day-to-day operations of the Anglican Communion Office and the programs and ministries of the four instruments of communion -- the archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates Meeting, and the Lambeth Conference of bishops. The Standing Committee is made up of 15 members elected from among the ACC and the Primates Meeting.
Orombi's April 9 letter, copied to the primates of the Anglican Communion and members of the Standing Committee, said that "recent meetings of the Standing Committee have included ... members of [the Episcopal Church], who are the very ones who have pushed the Anglican Communion" into what he called a "sustained crisis."
Orombi is one of the communion's leading critics of the Episcopal Church and recent developments concerning human sexuality. He has maintained that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture and repeatedly called for the Episcopal Church to repent for its recent actions, specifically the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, an openly gay man living in same-gender relationship, and some dioceses' provisions for the blessing of same-gender unions.
Orombi said in a recent position paper that the Church of Uganda believes that "homosexual practice has no place in God's design of creation, the continuation of the human race through procreation, or His plan of redemption."
Referring to the Episcopal Church in his April 9 letter, Orombi said: "How can we expect the gross violators of biblical truth to sanction their own discipline when they believe they have done nothing wrong and further insist that their revisionist theology is actually the substance of Anglicanism? We have only to note the recent election and confirmation of an active lesbian as a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles to realize that [the Episcopal Church] has no interest in 'gracious restraint.'"
Orombi was referring to the recent consent to the ordination and consecration of Mary Glasspool, the second openly gay partnered priest to be elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Glasspool’s consecration is set for May 15.
During its December meeting in London, the Standing Committee passed a resolution calling for "gracious restraint in respect of actions that endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion." Those actions included Glasspool's election and the then-pending consent process required before all bishops-elect may be consecrated and ordained, the decisions of some Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada bishops to allow same-gender blessings, and what the resolution called "continuing cross-jurisdictional activity within the communion."
In his letter, Orombi also expressed concerns about "the shift in the balance of powers among the instruments of communion."
Orombi bemoaned the fact that the primates appear to have been given "diminished responsibility," and that the Standing Committee "has granted itself supreme authority over covenant discipline in the latest draft [and] has taken upon itself authority it has not been given."
He was referring to the Anglican covenant, a set of principles intended to bind the Anglican Communion in light of recent disagreements over human sexuality issues and theological interpretation. The covenant is currently in its final draft and has been sent to the communion's 38 provinces for formal consideration.
Orombi called on Williams to schedule an "urgent" Primates Meeting "to continue sorting out the crisis that is before us, especially given the upcoming consecration of a lesbian as bishop in America." But he suggested the meeting should not include the primates of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada who, he said, "are proceeding with unbiblical practices that contradict the faith of Anglicanism."
Williams, chair of the Standing Committee, was unavailable for comment.
The members of the Standing Committee are:
- Archbishop Rowan Williams of England (chair)
- Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Australia
- Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda
- Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church
- Archbishop Barry Morgan of Wales
- Bishop James Tengatenga of Central Africa (ACC chair)
- Canon Elizabeth Paver of England (ACC vice chair)
- The Rev. Ian Douglas of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church
- Anthony Fitchett of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia
- Dato Stanley Isaacs of the Province of South East Asia
- Bishop Azad Marshall of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East
- Philippa Amable of West Africa
- Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe of Ceylon