http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2007/02/venables_predic.html
Posted by Ruth Gledhill on Monday, 26 February 2007 at 10:40 PM
Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone kindly agreed to speak to me about the Primates' Meeting.
We spoke in the little church next to Lambeth Palace, now converted to a museum, just hours before the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed the Church of England's General Synod and acknowledged that to the outside world, it looked as though the Anglican Church was obsessed with sex.
Among what else Archbishop Venables said, which does not appear on the video, was his pleasure at being able to report the freedom at the meeting in Tanzania for everyone to express themselves. 'There was no political pressure,' he said. 'No-one was intimidated by any one Primate. That was significant, and helped the meeting a lot.' He said the communique was 'as good as we could expect from the meeting.'
The Archbishop, who the day before was interviewed by the Sunday prgramme, continued: 'There was a desire to find a way forward but there was a great deal of suspicion and tension. It was polite and cordial, but there was a lot of suspicion and an awareness that there were a lot of agendas.'
He admitted it was unlikely TEC would be able to comply with the September 30 deadline. 'They are just continuing with what they did as a result of conviction. It is extremely unlikely that they will back off. It would be a complete denial of everything that has happened. The problem is, they will use legalese and their ways of following the letter of the law. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has said over the last couple of days that at no point has TEC been asked to stop blessing same-sex relationships. They have been asked not to authorise rites. It shows that even if they understand the spirit of it, they are not following the spirit.'
He said the point of the meeting had been to get the covenant sorted out. This meant creating space so that the two vital questions at the heart of the debate could be confronted: do the different parts of the Communion want to be in a relationship with each other, and can they be in a relationship. 'The covenant will help us answer that. We want to live in a relational church, but can we, theologically? People want to belong to the Anglican Communion for all sorts of reasons, but I am not sure they want to live together. There is not a lot of love lost. Were there love there, we would not be doing what we are doing.' TEC wants to be in the Communion because it wants to be part of the larger church, he said. 'Without a doubt, some of them care about the concept of the Church Catholic.'
The one thing lacking, he finds, is a willingness to sit down and talk about belief. 'It is all about strategy.'
So can it all hold together for the future?
'I personally think there is not enough good will, or the opportunities to develop the relationships needed to make it happen.' He believes the States could become a separate The Episcopal Church, and acknowledges there is already a large number who would want to be part of an Episcopal Church. He named Mexico, Central America and Brazil as partners who would consider themselves Episcopal. He sees the CofE remaining in the Anglican Communion.
Posted by Ruth Gledhill on Monday, 26 February 2007 at 10:40 PM in Anglican Communion |
