Lambeth Conference begins considering 'difficult situations'
Episcopal News Service, Canterbury. July 25, 2008 [072508-02]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
After days of prayer, relationship-building and public witness, the archbishops of Canterbury and Brisbane said July 25 that the bishops at the 2008 Lambeth Conference have begun to speak out on "some of the most difficult situations in the communion" and "tensions are emerging."
However, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told a media briefing that he hopes that the conference's first week will end with "a sense that it is worth staying together."
"That unity and cooperation is not a small thing and, if lost, is not to be taken lightly," he said. "I'd like to see that sustained in the days ahead."
Williams described the intent of a July 23 hearing -- which was open only to bishops -- was "quite deliberately crafted" by the members of the Windsor Continuation Group "as an opportunity for anyone and everyone to make their observations on some of the most difficult situations in the communion."
Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane, the primate of Australia and principal spokesman for the bishops, told media that "tensions are emerging as people are engaging with the material."
The hearing is the second of three planned sessions during which the group will discuss the issues involved in the continuing processes implementing the recommendations of the Windsor Report. The first came during the July 20 opening plenary session when the group's chair, Archbishop Clive Handford, former primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, outlined the group's "preliminary observations" since its work began in February. A paper he presented, which he said is purposely not being called "a report," was "sharply formed" in an effort to "spark off dialogue and discussion."
That first presentation, which was also open only to bishops, was followed by the July 23 hearing during which bishops were asked "where we would like to get to," Handford said. The third closed hearing on July 28 will revolve around the question "how do we get there from here," he said.
More about that paper and further remarks from Handford on the continuation group's work at Lambeth are available in the second item of the July 22 Lambeth Digest.
Calling the paper "a flag raised to see who salutes," Williams refused to comment about the continuation group's "Preliminary Observations Part Two" document which related to the July 23 hearing and was released July 25.
Williams' comment about parts of the paper being a trial balloon referred, in part, to the last half of the paper's last sentence, which reads "and we commend the suggestion for the setting up of an Anglican Communion Faith and Order Commission that could give guidance on the ecclesiological issues raised by our current 'crisis.'"
The two-page report is titled "Where would we like to be: Towards a Way Forward." It poses three questions:
- "Can we recognize the Church in one another?"
- "What is a Communion of Churches?" and
- "What is our shared understanding of the role of a bishop in the communion of the Church?"
Under the heading "Towards the Shaping of the Future," a section on the proposed Anglican covenant says, in part, that if the three questions are to be addressed, they "can be resolved most obviously by the implementation of the Covenant."
In the briefing, Williams was asked how an Anglican covenant could be imposed upon the community when no one entity in the communion has the authority to enforce such a document. "I'm looking for consent, not coercion," Williams responded, referring the journalist to his July 20 presidential address.
"Unless we do have something about which we consent, [something] we trust to resolve [the issues] we shall be flying farther apart," he said. "It's not as if we can just co-exist without any impact on one another as local churches. There have to be protocols and conventions by which we recognize one another as churches and by which we understand and manage the exchange between ourselves."
Williams acknowledged that "no one had the authority to impose things, we have to do it by consent, but ultimately some may consent and some won't, and that in itself is an issue."
The continuation group's paper also goes into detail about what it calls the "lack of clarity" about the role of each of the communion's Instruments of Communion and their relation to each other. The paper suggests the need ask whether the instruments "are fit to respond effectively to the demands of global leadership" and suggests that there must be a "communion-wide reflection which leaders towards a common understanding."
For instance, it notes "questions concerning the authority of a Lambeth Conference and the nature and authority of its Resolutions" and likens Lambeth resolutions to those issued by "the councils of bishops in primitive Christianity" in that "they are of sufficient weight that the consciences of many bishops require them to follow or at least try to follow" them.
The paper reports that the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), made up of bishops, clergy and laity from each province, is "particularly valued by those who emphasize the contribution of the whole people of God in the life, mission and the governance of the Church." However, saying that ACC members are "not necessarily located within the central structures of their own Provinces," the paper adds that "not all believe that a representative body is the best way to express the contribution of the whole people of God at a worldwide level."
The ACC meets approximately every three years and the paper suggests that such a timeframe may not be efficient to address the issues of the communion. The Primates Meeting, it says, "could be called together as occasion requires between Lambeth Conferences."
A "great virtue" of the Primates Meeting, the paper say, is that the Primates "are in conversation with their own Houses of Bishops" and are the leaders of the communion's provinces and thus "are able to reflect the breadth and depth of the conversations and opinions in their Provinces."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, as an Instrument of Communion, receives the shortest discussion in the paper. It re-iterates a statement from the 1998 Lambeth Conference describing the Archbishop of Canterbury as having an "extraordinary ministry of episcope, support and reconciliation." It also quotes the Windsor Report as describing the office's "central focus of unity and mission within the Communion [with the authority] to speak directly to any provincial situation on behalf of the Communion where this is deemed to be advisable."
The continuation group members added the words between the brackets as they combined two statements from paragraph 109 of the Windsor Report. The second part of the group's summary appears to come from this sentence: "The communion should be able to look to the holder of this office to speak directly to any provincial situation on behalf of the communion where this is deemed advisable."