Eames Commission Meets on Long Island
Episcopal News Service. March 23, 1989 [89056]
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (DPS, Mar. 23) -- From March 13 to March 18, the Eames Commission, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate, met at the George Mercer, Jr. Memorial School of Theology on the grounds of Long Island's Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City.
Chaired by Archbishop Robert H.A. Eames, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland -- whose name has been closely identified with the group from its inception -- the commission continued its exploration, begun at their first meeting in London in November 1988 [See DPS 88259], of how the provinces of the worldwide communion will relate to each other in regard to the linked issues of the ordination of women and of women in the episcopate.
In the short time between the commission's first meeting in London and the Garden City meeting, an important historic event has occurred in the United States that has served to focus -- and lend reality -- to earlier speculation. The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has elected, and, in February, consecrated, the Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris as Suffragan Bishop, making her the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion. At their London meeting, commission members were already aware, in Archbishop Eames's words, that "three Provinces (Canada, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and New Zealand) do not intend to withhold consecration to the episcopate of a woman who is duly elected...." Harris was, in fact, one of the people who met with the commission during their Garden City deliberations.
The commission accepted the invitation of the Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning, head of the Episcopal Church in the United States, to meet in his province because of the experience of the American Church of over a decade of women in the ordained ministry and of some people within the Episcopal Church who do not fully accept this development.
On the evening of March 13, the seven-member commission met with the Presiding Bishop. On March 14, Commission members met with representatives of two groups within the Episcopal Church with widely disparate views on the ordination of women. In the morning, they met with Bishop Harris, two women priests from the Episcopal Church, and a woman priest from the Anglican Church of Canada. In the afternoon, they met with members of the Evangelical and Catholic Mission (ECM), a conservative group within the Episcopal Church that believes the historic priesthood and episcopate has been inherited from the undivided Church and should not be altered unilaterally. ECM representatives meeting with the commission were led by the Rt. Rev. Clarence Pope, Bishop of Fort Worth, and included one other bishop, a priest, and a layperson.
The full commission held a press briefing on Thursday afternoon, March 16, in the Mercer library. All of the members were present: Archbishop Eames; the Rt. Rev. David Hope, Bishop of Wakefield, England; the Rt. Rev. Mark Dyer, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem (USA); the Most Rev. Peter Carnley, Archbishop of Perth, Australia; Dr. Mary Tanner, England; the Most Rev. Joseph Adetiloye, Archbishop of Nigeria; and the Rev. Dr. James Reed of Canada.
In introductory remarks, Eames made the process the commission was following clear. He indicated that Commission members were engaged in preparing an interim report for the Archbishop of Canterbury that would be presented to the primates of the Anglican Communion at their meeting scheduled for Larnaca, Cyprus, at the end of April. He held up the role of the commission members as listeners, hearing and learning from the experience of the Church.
Although it was made clear at the beginning of the briefing that the specifics of the report the commission was preparing were confidential until officially presented, commission members were open in their personal reactions to questions. The dominant note from all the members was one of commitment -- a commitment to use differences between provinces, and factions within provinces, as opportunities for greater understanding and growth within the Anglican Communion. They spoke of their attempt to "enter into the pain" of those who felt alienated by recent developments in the Church in order to better understand their positions.
Carnley, whose own country, Australia, is in the midst of debate about the ordination of women to the priesthood (at this point, the ordination of women in Australia stops with the diaconate), presented a realistic view of the communion's situation worldwide. He described the Church as "always on a journey, always in crisis," and suggested that the Anglican Communion now needs to make some shortterm solutions that will allow it to move forward, and then be prepared to reexamine positions at a later date.
Adetiloye of Nigeria had a number of interesting responses to questions concerning the disagreement in Africa about ordained women. He first of all made the point that the African Churches were not monolithic in their attitudes toward women and that there had been an element of pride and pleasure among many African Anglicans at the consecration of Barbara Harris, an African-American woman, as the Anglican Communion's first woman bishop. He also made the point that a far graver issue for Anglicanism -- and Christianity in general -- in Africa was the spread of Islam on the continent and the challenges it posed to Christian bodies.
Eames concluded the news briefing by saying that "the Lambeth Conference Resolution [3b-the resolution that established the Commission] requires the Eames Commission to monitor and encourage the process of consultation, and in that regard I am prepared to speculate that we will be requested to continue our work after the Primates Meeting in April."
The Archbishop's concluding remarks also underscored the sentiment echoed by all of the participants that the atmosphere surrounding the life of the Eames Commission to date has been one of genuine willingness to listen, to understand, and to plan for the future.