Anglican Archbishops End Summit On A Quiet Note

By Daniel Burke
Religion News Service

(RNS) Anglican archbishops concluded their six-day summit in Ireland on Sunday (Jan. 30) by issuing statements on a host of international issues, including violence against women in Africa, political chaos in Egypt and the murder of a gay rights activist in Uganda.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was among the two dozen senior bishops, or primates, gathered in Dublin who also sought to clarify their roles in governing the increasingly fractious Anglican Communion.

Seven archbishops, mostly from Africa, boycotted the meeting to protest the Episcopal Church's liberal stance on gay issues, particularly its consecration of openly gay and lesbian bishops. Seven additional primates did not attend the Dublin meeting for unrelated reasons.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the global Anglican fellowship, said the primates were "sometimes painfully aware of those not with us." "But no meeting can allow itself to be shaped wholly by the people who are not there," he said.

Episcopalians in the U.S. hailed Williams' condemnation of the Jan. 26 murder of gay Ugandan activist David Kato. Police in Uganda have called the murder a botched robbery, though a local newspaper had called for Kato and other gay Ugandans to be killed.

"This murder illustrates the fact that words have results," Williams said.

Ugandan Archbishop Henry Orombi, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the Episcopal Church, was one of the seven archbishops who boycotted the Dublin meeting.

Comments

[DannyEVillage]

10:41 PM on 03/07/2011

The ABC has done his damndest to placate the implacable. When will he figure that out, stop wasting his time and tend to the flock of Christ?

[markpkessinger]

10:46 PM on 03/07/2011

Rowan Williams has been the Barak Obama of ABCs.

[markpkessinger]

10:52 PM on 03/07/2011

Just realized that perhaps I should elaborate on my prior comment, lest anyone misunderstand what I am saying. What I meant to say is, "The ABC is to the conservative African bishops as President Obama is to the GOP."

[DannyEVillage]

06:47 AM on 03/08/2011

I understood the first time and think it's a good comparison.

[Hysterian68]

01:28 AM on 02/02/2011

With all these misogynist and gay bashing Anglicans now swimming the Tiber to Rome, it becomes apparent Anglicanism will become just another mainline Protestant church with nice choirs and pretty churches. Condemned to latitudinarian dullness and evangelical tirades. Just like the Sunday morning mainline Protestant pulpiteers. The Tractarian and Oxford Movement influenced types may be ready to defect and genuflect in the direction of Rome in large numbers.

On the other hand, the Roman Church has to be concerned that it doesn't appear to the world as the refuge for hate groups embracing the papacy, not because these groups accept the doctrine of papal primacy, but that they simply want to get away from other Anglicans.

Roman Catholicism has become the sanctuary for every right-wing nut group on earth and its beginning to take a toll on its own membership. There's lots of evidence from serious research conducted to date by Gallop and Pew Research, not to mention anecdotal evidence from Catholic sources, that the pope and bishops have alienated well educated, affluent, professional Catholics. The clergy scandals simply throw oil on the flames, and the loot isn't coming in on the collection plates like it once did. Catholics are voting with their feet and their pocketbooks. Over the decades, many have embraced Orthodoxy and Anglicanism.

Instead of bending over backwards to please and placate Anglo Catholics who represent less than 2% of Anglican thought, Rome should be thinking about their own flock they're losing and why that is.

[infopro]

01:30 PM on 02/02/2011

"all these misogynist and gay bashing Anglicans now swimming the Tiber" -- Fortunately there are relatively few of those, & frankly (just my mere mortal sinner opinion), for my money we're well rid of them. :)

"On the other hand, the Roman Church has to be concerned that it doesn't appear to the world ... but that they simply want to get away from other Anglicans." -- I have to admit, this is the first time I'd thought of that! Thanks for the laugh -- did me a world of good today! :)

[Billy Fritts]

04:21 PM on 02/01/2011

I dont understand why they boycoted the Episcopal Church-Every one knows that its a Gay and Homosexual Church--Duh

[merrymay]

06:56 PM on 02/01/2011

Third world Anglicans are at odds with Europeans on this. They see it as a forgivable moral lapse and not suitable in a Bishop .

[infopro]

01:32 PM on 02/02/2011

You might want to brief Akinola, Oromobi, & some of the rest of the "Global South" on that. They seem to have this idea that it's bad no matter WHO you are. -chuckle-

[infopro]

01:33 PM on 02/02/2011

Correction -- Orombi, not Oromobi. I do know how to spell it; my hands have their own ideas of whichg kets to hit some days, though. -laugh-

[DannyEVillage]

10:41 PM on 03/07/2011

Everyone knows WHAT?

[Jdaddy1951]

11:12 AM on 02/01/2011

Katherine Jefferts Schori was one of the first members of the Anglican communion to issue a statement condemning the murder of David Kato. I  think that speaks volumes for her leadership of the Episcopalians in the U.S. and the positive direction the church is taking toward accepting and loving all people, regardless of sexual orientation. The seven archbishops who protested demonstrate that they are not in compliance with the church's world mission and are simply politicians who are using their position in the church to preach a doctrine of hate.

[Godfearing]

01:08 PM on 02/01/2011

F&F ~ Somehow loving all people as you love yourself got lost by the wayside in too many religions. As an Atheist, I know my Atheist friends are on board!

[Jdaddy1951]

01:22 PM on 02/01/2011

I appreciate where YOU are coming from, but I disagree that all your atheist friends are on board with you. Many of the atheist comments I read are just as intolerant as some of the Christian comments. But it's good to know that you and I have beliefs in common.

[infopro]

03:27 PM on 02/01/2011

"protested demonstrat­e that they are not in compliance" -- And they say the *rest* of us are apostate... }:)

Orombi, Akinola, et cie., all apparently subscribe to a totally different world view than their spiritual seniors, & self-sanctify their supposed spiritual superiority by citing their *numeric* superiority parishioners & are the new center of the Church. Sounds positively retro-colonial, doesn't it? -snicker-

[Hysterian68]

01:05 AM on 02/02/2011

The Church and its benighted hierarchy becomes increasingly irrelevant to believers and non-believers everywhere. Time to dish these purple clad pontificating prelates in their party hats and get back to following the original Founder. They are proof corporate Christianity is heading for the rocks.
We need fewer pulpiteers and more practicioners of Christian charity and the Golden Rule.

[DannyEVillage]

10:46 PM on 03/07/2011

I welcome them to--themselves.

[Cranmer1549]

10:01 AM on 02/01/2011

Ya, it was quiet because of the troublemakers stayed home!

[infopro]

09:02 AM on 02/01/2011

"no meeting can allow itself to be shaped wholly by the people who are not there" -- Considering that ++Cantuar has more than once abandoned his previous supposedly dear principles & thrown fellow primates under the bus in an effort to "maintain the Communion," I wonder just how much stock he actually puts in those words.

Most meetings I've been a participant in (from small organizations to very very large) have had their direction determined by those who *were* in attendance & chose to be a part of a process, not those who were not/chose *not* to. I can't think of a single one that hasn't been that way, in fact....

[ThinkCreeps]

07:49 AM on 02/01/2011

Well that's no fun. I remember the good old days, when they would have rounded up some old local women and had a quick witchtrial.

[infopro]

09:03 AM on 02/01/2011

Not Anglicans. Puritans, maybe, but not Anglicans. :)

[DannyEVillage]

10:43 PM on 03/07/2011

Rome has done its share.

[Jdaddy1951]

11:14 AM on 02/01/2011

The Puritans actually didn't get along with the Anglicans or much of anyone else. That's why they were run out of England and The Netherlands and came to North America where there wasn't much opposition to their filthy beliefs. That's how fundamentalist hatred began in America.

[ThinkCreeps]

01:49 PM on 02/01/2011

Indeed, Nathanial sits on a spike....

[Hysterian68]

01:08 AM on 02/02/2011

Now that you've learned your history made simple lesson for the day, please also add the fact that Puritans and Presbyterians, as hateful as many of them were, did provide the beginnings of the best educational system this country has ever had.

[Indigo1941]

06:38 AM on 02/01/2011

Quiet Anglicans? The times, they are a-changing!

[infopro]

09:07 AM on 02/01/2011

Well, the [ahem] noisemakers chose to sit home with their own ball. They think the "baby Christian" tail wags the adult-Christian dog, apparently. (And please don't anyone go ballistic & get your knickers in a knot. :) We're all 100% entitled to our opinions, & that one' is mine. -chuckle-]

[Jdaddy1951]

11:17 AM on 02/01/2011

I'm with you, except on one point. No one, Christian or not, is entitled to a belief that it's all right to kill anyone else because of their religious beliefs. And David Kato was murdered because American evangelicals, in collusion with the Ugandan government, fanned public hatred of homosexual people.

[DannyEVillage]

10:45 PM on 03/07/2011

We used to be the church known as God's Frozen People--would never, NEVER do anything unseemly--at least, not publicly and certainly not in church. Things have changed all right, but not in the way your reading suggests.