Anglican Mainstream

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During a press conference after the Anglican Communion Network’s two-day council meeting, the Most Rev. Gregory Venables of the Province of the Southern Cone challenged the notion among some Episcopalians that the primates are claiming curial powers for themselves.

Because Anglicans worldwide are led by locally elected bishops, he said, “Common sense and biblical concepts would say that the primates are at that highest level of authority, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

The Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, said the primates’ increased authority is in direct response to Resolution III.6 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. That resolution said, in part, that the primates’ meeting should “include among its responsibilities positive encouragement to mission, intervention in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces, and giving of guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies.”

“The progressives dismiss everything that Lambeth says,” the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, said.

The Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman, Bishop of Quincy, noted that the difference between being prophetic and being canonically disobedient “depends on who’s winning.”

After ratifying a theological statement and confederation articles of the Common Cause Partnership on Tuesday, the council worked its way through a few more items with greater efficiency.

It re-elected Bishop Duncan as moderator and the Rev. Canon David Anderson of the American Anglican Council as secretary. It also elected Bill Roemer, of Sewickley, Pa., as treasurer. The council adopted a resolution that affirmed “the unanimous urging of the primates of the Anglican Communion that all existing litigation between The Episcopal Church and those who have left TEC or are otherwise engaged in litigation involving claims of TEC, be suspended.” The Network renewed an offer to serve as a mediator in such cases.

Asked from the floor if he thought these cases actually could be suspended, Wicks Stephens, Network chancellor, said “I am ever hopeful. God is God. God can make it happen.”

Douglas LeBlanc

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