International Briefing Pt. 2
Episcopal News Service. October 14, 2005 [101405-4-A]
* ASIA: Presiding Bishop to visit at invitation of Anglican leaders
* PANAMA: Latin American theological group calls Communion to honor Anglicanism's middle way
ASIA: Presiding Bishop to visit at invitation of Anglican leaders; Hiroshima, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei among places of dialogue, pilgrimage
[ENS] At the invitation of Anglican leaders, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold will on October 18 begin a two-week visit that includes dialogue and pilgrimages in Hiroshima, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Taipei among other destinations.
Themes of International Anglican partnerships and reconciliation will in focus as the Presiding Bishop is welcomed by bishops and other leaders of the Anglican Church of Korea, the China Christian Council, the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan), and the Diocese of Taiwan as part of the Episcopal Church’s Pacific Province (8).
While in Japan, the Presiding Bishop will visit Rikkyo University, one of the oldest private universities in Japan, founded in 1874 by U.S. Episcopal Missionary Bishop Channing Moore Williams. Formerly a men’s college, the university now enrolls more than 15,000 men and women and has developed a new Japanese language and culture program for foreign students. Rikkyo University is located in the northwestern part of the city of Tokyo.
Traveling with the Presiding Bishop will be his wife, Phoebe Griswold, who is scheduled to meet with various groups addressing the well-being of women worldwide.
Accompanying the Griswolds will be Margaret Larom, the Episcopal Church’s director of Anglican and Global Relations; the Rev. Brian Grieves, the Episcopal Church’s director of peace and justice ministries; Barbara Braver, the Presiding Bishop’s assistant for communication; and Canon Robert Williams, the Episcopal Church’s director of communication.
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Latin American theological group calls Communion to honor Anglicanism's middle way
[ENS] A majority of the bishops attending the Latin America Anglican Theological Congress meeting in Panama have signed a statement calling for the Anglican Communion to regain what they call the participatory and tolerant character that Anglicanism has always offered as the middle way within Christianity. The statement was developed at the congress' meeting in Panama City October 5-10.
In the statement, “Declaración de Panama,” the bishops criticized what they see as an effort to polarize biblical and theological discussions with labels that assign people to the Global North or the Global South. They said they feel they are being pressured to choose sides when, in fact, neither alternative fits their views.
The bishops who signed the statement instead suggest a Global Center that is rooted in the traditional middle way of Anglican inclusion and tolerance.
The statement also laments the exclusion of the Province of Brazil from the upcoming conference of global south Anglicans to be held in Alexandria, Egypt. The statement also criticizes the reception by the Primate of the Province of the Southern Cone of the deposed bishop and clergy from the Brazilian diocese of Recife.
John Kater, retired professor of ministry development at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, attended the meetings that produced the statement. He said the gathering was characterized by a solidarity across many potential dividing lines, including culture, race, nationality, and language.
“I’m excited about this statement because it represents a rejection of the incredible polarization of the Anglican Communion,” said Kater, who provided a paraphrase translation of parts of the statement. “It represents a common affirmation by people who have different opinions about specific issues and it affirms that communion goes beyond shared opinions.”
The statement was signed by the primates of Brazil, Mexico and Central America, six other Brazilian bishops, the majority of the bishops of Central America, all the bishops of Mexico, plus Western Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Spanish and English versions of the statement have not yet been made available electronically.
The theological conference is a new initiative coordinated by a sub-commission of the Commission on Theological Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (CETALC).
"The Latin America Theological Congress came out of the commissions concern about the theological education in Latin America," the Most Rev. Martin Barahona-Pascasio, Primate of IARCA and Bishop of El Salvador recently told ENS.
"We know that there are good seminaries in the United States but the theological education in Latin America is more difficult. We have experienced that when we send students from Latin America to the United States to study, they don't want to come back. So we need to develop our own vision of theology in Latin America. This vision is of the viewpoint of globalization of the world," he said.