Anglican Communion's Next Secretary General Says Church is About Community
Episcopal News Service. August 5, 2004 [080504-1-A]
The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon -- who serves Dublin's Trinity College as director of its Irish School of Ecumenics -- spoke with the BBC on July 25 following his appointment by the Archbishop of Canterbury to become the Anglican Communion's next secretary general in January 2005.
"Churches are essentially about community and building community," Kearon said in the interview with BBC Northern Ireland's Sunday Sequence. "And community is not only about positive things, but they also sometimes have their tensions."
An audio stream of the full interview can be found at: www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/realmedia/religion/sundaysequence/kenneth_kearon250704.ram
Kearon told the Sunday Sequence about his "delight and honor" regarding his appointment, announced July 20 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, in his capacity as president of the Anglican Consultative Council. Kearon will succeed the Rev. Canon John L. Peterson, who steps down in December 2004.
In the BBC interview, Kearon describes two dimensions of his new work. The first is an administrative role as the leader of the Anglican Communion Office in London which resources the various "instruments of unity" within Anglicanism: the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Conference, Primates Meeting, and the Anglican Consultative Council. The second is an ambassadorial role, working between the various churches and maintaining lines of communication and understanding.
Kearon spoke about the ongoing work of the Lambeth Commission on Communion (LCC), which was set up at the request of the Primates of the Anglican Communion to discuss and report on ways in which communion unites the world's 78 million Anglicans and their autonomous national churches, or provinces, especially amid diversity of opinion and practice.
Appointment of the LCC was prompted by the U.S. Episcopal Church's ratification one year ago of a priest in a committed same-sex relationship as one of its bishops, and by the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster's decision to authorize services for use in connection with same-sex unions.
Kearon described the LCC as a "process that's engaged currently in listening and engaging with the people who have very strong opinions on either side of the issue."
"The more you listen to people and engage with people who have deeply held divisions of opinion on this issue, the more you realize just how complex the issue is," he said.
As director of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Kearon has had to engage with the worldwide Church for the past 5-1/2 years. He describes this as a "very interesting aspect of his work" emphasizing that dialogue is at the heart of all Christian faith.
When asked what he thought would be the next big issue for the Lambeth Conference -- the once-a-decade meeting of bishops in the Anglican Communion -- Kearon cited the implications of globalization as a serious matter facing churches.
"We have seen a huge process of economic globalization," he said. "But I think there is also a globalization of values, and an impact on cultures. We're very conscious of the clashes of cultures between Christianity and Islam at the moment, and I do think that these will be on the agendas for most churches."
More information about the work of the Anglican Communion can be found at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/.