Two provinces align with Anglican Covenant
Episcopal News Service. May 13, 2011 [051311-01]
ENS staff
This story, published at 5 p.m. EDT, updates an earlier version with information about the Church of Ireland.
Two Anglican Communion provinces have aligned with the Anglican Covenant, albeit using different terms to define that decision.
The Church of Ireland's General Synod voted May 13 to "subscribe" to the covenant, noting that it purposely chose that word rather than using "adopt." Meanwhile, the Province of South East Asia, has issued a "letter of accession."
The original request to the communion's primates and moderators was that the member churches should consider the covenant and decide "on acceptance or adoption."
"Subscribing the Covenant is an indication that the Church of Ireland has put its collective name to and aligned with it," the Church of Ireland said in a short press release. "The Covenant sits under the Preamble and Declaration of the Church and does not affect the sovereignty of the Church of Ireland or mean any change in doctrine."
The release said that the synod found that the covenant is "consonant with the doctrines and formularies of the Church of Ireland." The subscribing resolution was passed by a "large majority" of both the House of Representatives and the House of Bishops, according to the release.
In what South East Asia calls a "preamble" to that letter, the province says the covenant "offers a concrete platform in ordering the churches in the Anglican Communion to be a Communion with a clear ecclesial identity."
The 3,200 word preamble is critical of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church and the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada. It objects to the Canadian diocese's authorization of same-gender blessings, and to the Episcopal Church's consecration of Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool as bishops. Robinson and Glasspool openly live in committed same-gender relationships.
"The Anglican Communion should adopt more uniform processes in the election and appointment of bishops, to ensure that such processes are not held hostage to local politics and to parochial understandings of the episcopal office," the province suggests in the document.
The preamble says in one place that the province has had a "broken relationship" with the Episcopal Church and the Canadian diocese since 2003. In another section of the letter, the province describes "the present state of our impaired relation with particular office bearers and dioceses in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada."
There is no indication in the preamble about how the provincial decision to accede to the covenant was made.
The Anglican Covenant first was proposed in the 2004 Windsor Report as a way that the communion and its 38 autonomous provinces might maintain unity despite differences, especially relating to biblical interpretation and human sexuality issues. Following years of discussion and several draft versions, the final text of the covenant was sent in December 2009 to the provinces for formal consideration.
Three other Anglican Communion provinces have officially adopted the covenant. The Anglican Church of Mexico, meeting in General Synod in June 2010, became the first province to adopt it. The Anglican Church in the West Indies followed in January. At the time that the West Indies' decision was announced, the press release noted that the Church of the Province of Myanmar had also adopted the covenant.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa on Oct. 1, 2010 voted in favor of adopting the covenant, but that decision will need to be ratified by the next meeting of the province's provincial synod in 2013.
The Episcopal Church's Executive Council is beginning to review comments on the covenant that were made in response to a September request from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson and council member Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine for Episcopalians to discuss the proposed covenant during the time before General Convention in 2012.
Ballentine, who chairs the council's covenant task force, told Episcopal News Service that when the council meets June 15-17, the task force will outline how it intends to prepare its report to convention. Groups that report to the General Convention must have their materials ready in the fall for inclusion in the so-called Blue Book collection of reports to the 2012 General Convention. Council meets again Oct. 21-24.
The 2009 meeting of General Convention asked, via Resolution D020, that the church's dioceses study the proposed covenant and report to Executive Council. The resolution also directed council to prepare a report, which is to include draft legislation, concerning the church's response to the covenant for the 2012 meeting of General Convention.
The council has predicted that formal approval of the covenant by the Episcopal Church could not come until at least 2015 should endorsement require changes to the church's constitution. Constitutional changes require approval by two consecutive meetings of the church's triennial convention.
Some Episcopalians and Anglicans, including Jefferts Schori and the Executive Council, have raised concerns about the covenant being used as an instrument of control, particularly in section 4, which outlines a method for resolving disputes in the communion. Others include Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Canada, Archbishop Henri Isingoma of the Congo, and Archbishop Paul Kim of South Korea, each of whom expressed reservations about the document during their visit to the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops meeting March 25 - 30.