Anglican Primates Issue Pastoral Letter After Brazil Meeting
Episcopal News Service. May 30, 2003 [2003-121]
Jan Nunley , James Rosenthal, Director of communications for the Anglican Communion and editor of Anglican World
(ENS/ACNS) Same-sex blessings, AIDS initiatives in Africa, and the needs of theological education across the Anglican Communion topped the list of concerns brought to the 2003 meeting of the primates of the Anglican Communion, held May 19-26 in Gramado, Southern Brazil, and hosted by the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.
It was Rowan Williams' first meeting as Archbishop of Canterbury, although he has attended the last three meetings as Archbishop of Wales, and marked the first time the primates have met as a group in a Latin American country. The primates are the presiding bishops or archbishops of the churches of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
"This is my fourth primates' meeting and it is quite amazing how far we have come since Porto in terms of sharing and understanding one another's realities," Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold commented. "We have deepened and expanded our sense of what it means to be in communion, in spite of the profoundly different contexts in which we seek to minister."
Distinctive Anglican approach
The primates heard theological reflections by Dr. Esther Mombo, academic dean at St. Paul's United Theological College in Limuru, Kenya, and David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge in England. Mombo urged them to "talk to each other rather than about each other." They also gave some time to the discussion of the recent papal encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which many felt did not adequately reflect the progress in ecumenical life that has been experienced by Anglicans and Roman Catholics and the reality of what was happening on the ground.
The primates issued a pastoral letter, entitled "United in Common Prayer and Witness," intended to be read in churches of the Anglican Communion on the Feast of Pentecost, 2003. The letter addresses several areas of discussion prominent during the meeting.
Concerned that Anglicans should be "theologically alert and sensitive to the call of God," the primates said they discussed what basic standards of theological education should be provided for and expected from all members of the church--a task being undertaken by the Anglican Communion Task Group on Theological Education.
"We recognize that there is a distinctive Anglican approach to theological study," the letter said. "This is reflected not only in the way our worship and liturgical life express our belief, and in our attention to Scripture read in the light of tradition, but also in our respect for exploration and experiment.
"Theological education in the Anglican Communion honors each local context and, at the same time, calls us together into communion and mutual accountability. Therefore, though we wish to develop common standards of theological education worldwide, we value the uniqueness of the work of the Holy Spirit in each place."
No consensus on same-sex blessing
The letter stated that the 38 provinces of the Communion are "irrevocably called into a special relationship of fellowship" but nevertheless face challenges in applying the Gospel to their specific situations and societies--challenges that "raise questions for our traditional teaching and understanding."
They committed as primates to "the recognition that in each province there is a sincere desire to be faithful disciples of Christ and of God's Word, in seeking to understand how the Gospel is to be applied in our generation; to respect the integrity of each other's provinces and dioceses, acknowledging the responsibility of Christian leaders to attend to the pastoral needs of minorities in their care; to work and pray that the communion between our churches is sustained and deepened; and to seek from God ‘a right judgment in all things' (Collect of Pentecost)."
The pastoral letter then turned to the thorny issue of human sexuality. Expressing gratitude both to Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies for the study "True Union in the Body?" and to Griswold for "The Gift of Sexuality: A Theological Perspective," the report of the theology committee of the ECUSA House of Bishops, the primates commended the study of both documents.
"The question of public rites for the blessing of same sex unions is still a cause of potentially divisive controversy. The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke for us all when he said that it is through liturgy that we express what we believe, and that there is no theological consensus about same sex unions. Therefore, we as a body cannot support the authorization of such rites," the letter said.
But the statement stopped short of full prohibition of such rites. "This is distinct from the duty of pastoral care that is laid upon all Christians to respond with love and understanding to people of all sexual orientations," the letter went on. "As recognized in the booklet ‘True Union,' it is necessary to maintain a breadth of private response to situations of individual pastoral care."
Reactions swift
The letter was immediately hailed as "a loud and clear 'no'" to same-sex blessings by the Rev. David Anderson, president of the conservative American Anglican Council (AAC). "The Anglican Primates have said 'no.' The ECUSA Bishops' Theological Commission has said 'no.' We now urge the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to respect the godly direction of the leaders of our local and worldwide Church and say 'no' to same-sex blessings," said Anderson.
In another reaction to the pastoral letter, the Rev. Michael Hopkins, president of Integrity USA, and the Rev. Susan Russell, executive director of Claiming the Blessing, complained that gays and lesbians have been "systematically excluded" from the primates' conversations about sexuality. "Further, we are concerned that a new standard of theological consensus is being invented which has neither roots in historical Anglicanism nor room for prophetic witness," their joint statement said. "The distinction between and the separation of public rites and private pastoral care is, we believe, a dangerous and slippery slope that not only undermines our identity as people of common prayer but assaults our catholicity."
Anglican Gathering proposed
The primates also discussed a proposal for a worldwide Anglican Gathering of lay and ordained people from across the communion, held in association with the next Lambeth Conference. Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town has offered to host both the Lambeth Conference and the Gathering in 2008.
They heard from the Rev. Ted Karpf of the Anglican Communion's new Office of HIV/AIDS, based in South Africa, about the challenges faced by churches around the communion in facing the global pandemic. "We admitted that the ‘Body of Christ has AIDS,'" the letter also said, adding that "AIDS is not a punishment from God…it is rather an effect of fallen creation and our broken humanity." The primates promised to "engage more deeply in challenging cultures and traditions which stifle the humanity of women and deprive them of equal rights," and agreed that their "greatest challenge is to nurture and equip our children to protect themselves from HIV, so that we can fulfill the vision of building a generation without AIDS."
The primates gave special mention of "the contribution which the Episcopal Church (USA) continues to give to many provinces across our Communion." They also sent greetings to former Archbishop George Carey and his wife Eileen.
During the meeting, Griswold was elected by the Americas region as their representative on the primates' standing committee. Barry Morgan, the new Archbishop of Wales, was elected by the European region for the same committee. The standing committee meets with the Anglican Consultative Council's standing committee each year as the joint standing committee for the ongoing work of the Anglican Communion.
'Things as they are are changed'
Over 1000 Brazilian Episcopalians gathered in a Bavarian-style local cinema in Gramado to join with the primates for a Celebration of the Unity of God's People at the close of the meeting. The occasion was marked by what Williams called "a sign of hope for the future" as he commented on the high numbers of young priests and people in the congregation.
In his sermon, Williams cited a portion of a poem by the American writer Wallace Stevens, 'The Man with the Blue Guitar':
"They said, You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.
"The man replied, Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.
"Things as they are, with human beings left to themselves, so often seem shadowed by death and cruelty. But we have been given another song to sing, we, the ransomed of the Lord returning to Zion with singing," Williams proclaimed. "As we sing what we have learned from Jesus, things as they are are changed. Glory dwells in our land, the glory that the Son shares with the Father in the Holy Spirit."
The Rev. Gregory Cameron, director of ecumenical affairs for the Anglican Communion, called the meeting "remarkable" for the sense of unity and prayer that pervaded the occasion. "From the outset, Archbishop Rowan had said that he wanted the meeting to be an occasion when the primates drew together in prayer before God," he said. "And this focus for the meeting's deliberations seems to have had a profound impact of the process of debate which went on." He added that "the tone was set by a study of Jesus' "farewell discourses" in John 14-16, which opened each day's session.
While the meetings were in session, the spouses of the primates experienced a "feast of love" or agape in the hall of Holy Trinity National Cathedral in Porto Alegre, hosted by the board of directors and parish representatives of the diocesan Anglican Women Union. As part of the program they had an introduction; a special liturgy of agape developed by the cathedral dean, the Rev. Marinez Rosa dos Santos, and her assistant, the Rev. Dessordi P. Leite. There was also an opportunity for the spouses to tell and listen to experiences of women's work in different parts of the communion. Jane Williams, wife of the new Archbishop, was greeted warmly by the other primates' spouses.
The meeting also honored Glauco Soares de Lima, the retiring primate of the Brazilian church. The Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil began in 1890 as a result of the missionary work of two north American missionaries, James Watson Morris and Lucien Lee Kinsolving. Made autonomous from the Episcopal Church in 1965, it now has more than 100,000 baptized members and more than two hundred clergy, including 30 women priests.
Five of the primates were unable to attend the gathering, including Archbishop Peter Kwong of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, whose travel was restricted due to a World Health Organization travel advisory regarding Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong.
For the entire text of the Primates' pastoral letter, see www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/index.html
CORRECTION: 3rd graf--note change: this was Bishop Griswold's fourth Primates' Meeting, not his third, as stated in the list version of this story.