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[Ed. Note:  Canon Kearon addressed the Synod in Canada a week ago, stating at the post-address press conference, ".. such questions (on faith and order) are often a part of ecumenical dialogues, and they ought to be discussed on the Anglican side by bodies who share that faith and order, at the very minimum..."    Kearon also said that the Archbishop's choice of discipline was "fairly minimal."  There may be an additional story on this important visit to the Executive Council later today.  When it is available, I will post it here.  Cheryl M. Wetzel]

http://episcopalchurch.org/79425_122931_ENG_HTM.htm

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, June 16, 2010

Episcopal News Service — Linthicum Heights, Maryland

The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, is to speak to the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council here on June 18.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the council at its opening plenary session that Kearon would engage with the council in a question-and-answer session at 9 a.m. on the last day of the council’s June 16-18 meeting at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute.

His presence at the meeting will come 11 days after he announced that he had sent letters to five Episcopal Church members of the inter-Anglican ecumenical dialogues with the Lutheran, Methodist, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches “informing them that their membership on these dialogues has been discontinued.” Kearon also said on June 7 that he had written to the Episcopal Church member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), withdrawing her membership and inviting her to serve as a consultant to that body.

Kearon’s move came in response to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ May 28 Pentecost letter in which he proposed that representatives serving on some of the Anglican Communion’s ecumenical dialogues should resign their membership if they are from a province that has not complied with moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate. He specifically referred to the May 15 consecration of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Douglas Glasspool and the unauthorized incursions by Anglican leaders into other provinces. Glasspool is the Episcopal Church’s second openly gay, partnered bishop.

On the same day Kearon announced that he had terminated the Episcopal Church memberships, he said after a speech to the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod that “the archbishop did have to act” following Glasspool’s consecration.

Kearon said in a post-address press conference that the actions taken were “fairly minimal.”

“There’s no doubt that the election and confirmation of Mary Glasspool is a full, well-thought out decision of the Episcopal Church and we must respect that fact,” he said. However, he said the decision implies that the Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion…. [and so] they shouldn’t represent the communion on faith and order questions.”   Read more…

[Ed. Note:  Canon Kearon's letter specifies that, "the recent Episcopal election in Los Angeles has created a situation where the Archbishop has been forced to act..." before the proposed Anglican Covenant has been endorsed and set into place within the Communion.  The TEC press release on this issue (see below) whines that Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya are not mentioned in the letter - TEC's  House of bishop's 'burr under the saddle' re: intervention in US with orthodox parishes and diocese that oppose these innovations.  this letter was written and distributed prior to the TEC Presiding Bishop's reply to his letter, suggesting that the Archbishop's statements were un-Anglican and that he interpreted the scripture at the top of the letter incorrectly.  Pray for the Church!  Cheryl M. Wetzel]

Anglican Communion News Service

Secretary General lays out next steps following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost letter.

Most of you will have read the recent letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Anglican Communion on the subject of Pentecost. Part of that letter addresses the current and ongoing tensions in the Anglican Communion – these tensions cluster around the three moratoria referred to in the Windsor Report.

It was hoped to have held the gracious restraint requested on many occasions by the Instruments of Communion until the Covenant had been considered in-depth by all of the provinces. The Covenant outlines a process whereby major issues before the Communion which affect its common life can be considered properly and appropriately within the community of faith.  However, the recent Episcopal election in Los Angeles has created a situation where the Archbishop has been forced to act before the Covenant has been considered by most provinces.

So the Archbishop of Canterbury has made the following proposals in his Pentecost Letter which  spell out the consequences of this action:

“I am therefore proposing that, while these tensions remain unresolved, members of such provinces – provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) – should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged. I am further proposing that members of such provinces serving on IASCUFO should for the time being have the status only of consultants rather than full members”.

Last Thursday I sent letters to members of the Inter Anglican ecumenical dialogues who are from the Episcopal Church informing them that their membership of these dialogues has been discontinued. In doing so I want to emphasise again as I did in those letters the exceptional service of each and every person to that important work and to acknowledge without exception the enormous contribution each person has made.

I have also written to the person from the Episcopal Church who is a member of the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), withdrawing that person’s membership and inviting her to serve as a Consultant to that body. Read more…

[Ed. Note:  Underlining is mine.  Please note that the ENS release says "suggests that they resign their membership."  The actual letter from Canon Kearon (see above) announces that he has removed them from their  committee, with the exception of Grieb, who can remain on the committee as a consultant.  Consultant status usually means seat given, but no voice and no vote.  However, you are allowed to respond to direct questions from the rest of the committee.  I regret that The Rev. Carola von Wrangel, rector of Christ-the-King in Frankfurt, Germany has been removed, as spoke spoke intelligently and with great passion on the authority of Scripture and TEC"s failed interpretations of gay references,  at last summer's General Convention.  Cheryl M. Wetzel]

By Matthew Davies, June 07, 2010,  Episcopal News Service

the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, London England

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, has written to those Episcopalians serving on the communion’s ecumenical dialogues informing them that their memberships have been discontinued.

The decision is likely to affect five Episcopal Church members serving on Anglican dialogues with the Lutheran, Methodist, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as one member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order, who has been invited to serve as a consultant.

Kearon’s announcement came in a June 7 letter outlining the next steps following Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ Pentecost letter.

Williams had proposed in his May 28 letter that representatives currently serving on ecumenical dialogues should resign their membership if they are from a province that has not complied with moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate. He specifically referred to the May 15 consecration of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Douglas Glasspool and the unauthorized incursions by Anglican leaders into other provinces. Glasspool is the Episcopal Church’s second openly gay, partnered bishop.

Jan Butter, communications director for the Anglican Communion, confirmed that the membership change applies to all ecumenical dialogues.

Butter told ENS that the Anglican Communion’s secretary general, in consultation with the archbishop of Canterbury, appoints members to the ecumenical commissions and to IASCUFO. “He therefore can ask people to stand down,” he said.

Episcopal Church members who were serving on the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue are the Rev. Thomas Ferguson, the Episcopal Church’s interim deputy for ecumenical and interreligious relations, and Assistant Bishop William Gregg of North Carolina.

Bishop C. Franklin Brookhart of Montana had been a member of the Anglican-Methodist International Commission for Unity in Mission and the Very Rev. William H. Petersen, professor of ecclesiastical and ecumenical history of Bexley Hall, Columbus, was serving on the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission. The Rev. Carola von Wrangel, rector of Christ-the-King in Frankfurt, Germany, a parish in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, had served on the Anglican-Old Catholic International Coordinating Council.

The Rev. Katherine Grieb, an Episcopal priest and professor of New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, was the IASCUFO member who has been invited to serve as a consultant.

Kearon said he has also written to Archbishop Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church of Canada “to ask whether its General Synod or House of Bishops has formally adopted policies that breach the second moratorium in the Windsor Report, authorizing public rites of same-sex blessing,” and to Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, “asking him for clarification as to the current state of his interventions into other provinces.”

Some dioceses in the Canadian church have made provisions for blessing same-gender unions and Venables has offered oversight to conservative members of parishes and dioceses breaking away from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

No mention was made in Kearon’s letter of ecumenical commission members from other provinces — such as Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda – that are currently involved in cross-border interventions in the United States.

The moratoria were first mentioned in the 2004 Windsor Report, a document that made several recommendations on how the communion might maintain unity amid disagreements over theological interpretations and human sexuality issues. The moratoria have since been supported by the communion’s primates, at their February 2009 meeting, and the Anglican Consultative Council, the communion’s main policy-making body, at its May 2009 meeting.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on June 2 issued a pastoral letter to the Episcopal Church, in which she referred to Williams’ letter and urged continued dialogue with those who disagree with recent actions, “for we believe that the Spirit is always calling us to greater understanding.”

“We are distressed at the apparent imposition of sanctions on some parts of the communion. We note that these seem to be limited to those which ‘have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion.’ We are further distressed that such sanctions do not, apparently, apply to those parts of the communion that continue to hold one view in public and exhibit other behaviors in private. Why is there no sanction on those who continue with a double standard?”

On June 7, the Episcopal Church’s Office of Public Affairs issued a resource for Episcopalians clarifying the distinction between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Read more…