Rowan Williams: Why the Anglican Communion matters

General Convention

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury has written a piece that is published in today’s Telegraph edition. He confirms much of what Bishop Jeffers Schori has written in her piece explaining the requests of the meeting.

Here are two key paragraphs:

“What happened in Tanzania in the last week or so represents an effort to define what could restore trust – all round, since the point is made that interventions from overseas in the American Church also have destructive effects in some ways. What has come to be called the ‘Listening Process’ was discussed and strongly affirmed the continuing work on finding means for homosexual men and women in the Communion to speak about their experience in a safe environment.

This work has not been restricted to the West, and shows surprising signs of vigour. The outline of a ‘covenant’ document for local Anglican Churches suggests ways in which we could commit ourselves to a future process where consultation was fully built in. The requests to the American Church for further clarification and a moratorium on certain actions while the covenant process is going forward are essentially requests to show that their desire to stay with the Communion is strong enough to cope with a halt for the sake of continuing to move and work together. The suggestion of a structure in America to care for the minority tries to remove any need for external intervention.”

Read the rest here: Why the Anglican Communion matters | Dt Opinion | Opinion | Telegraph

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Episcopal bishop, dad, astronomer, erstwhile dancer...