Bp. Mouneer: Talks Prompted Resignation

From The Living Church-

The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Anis, who has resigned his position on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, told The Living Church that discussions at the committee’s meeting in December 2009 are what prompted his resignation from the committee.

“I had been in communication before the meeting that I needed to discuss the participation of the Episcopal Church on the standing committee. I found some resistance to this,” said Bishop Mouneer, who is Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East.

Bishop Mouneer announced his resignation in a five-page letter dated Jan. 30 and distributed by his diocese [PDF].

“I didn’t see a way forward to follow through on the recommendations made by the primates and by the Windsor Report itself,” Bishop Mouneer said regarding the Episcopal Church’s continuing representation on the standing committee.

“Many sing praises of ‘inclusiveness’ while at the same time they exclude others,” Bishop Mouneer wrote in his resignation letter. “I am deeply disturbed in my conscience when I see a kind of double standard in dealing with different issues. While emphasizing the importance of caring for the marginalized in our communities, like the LGBT community, the orthodox Anglicans are marginalized.”

He expressed a similar concern in a brief telephone interview with The Living Church.

“When it comes to who will sign and adopt the Covenant, there is exclusiveness,” he said. “This double standard hurts me.”

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2010/2/1/bishop-mouneer-discussions-prompted-resignation

Is an Anglican schism in the offing?

From Spero Forum-

We are about to enter the second decade of the third millennium. In ten years’ time, shall we find the world-wide Anglican Communion still one, or broken up into a group of splinter churches?

A standing committee of the Anglican Communion held in London from 15 to 18 December this year passed a resolution, approved for public distribution.

It read as follows:

in the light of
i) the recent Episcopal nomination in the Diocese of Los Angeles of a partnered lesbian candidate
ii) the decisions in a number of US and Canadian dioceses to proceed with the formal ceremonies of same-sex blessings
iii) continuing cross-jurisdictional activity within the Communion,

the standing committee strongly affirms Resolution 14.09 of Anglican Consultative Council 14 supporting three moratoria proposed by the Windsor Report of 2004 requesting “gracious restraint” in respect of actions that endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion by going against the declared view of the Instruments of Communion.
In short, think twice before confirming the nomination of Mary Glasspool as suffragan-elect of Los Angeles, since this raises serious questions for the future of the Communion as a whole.

More here

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34&idsub=158&id=24568&t=Is+an+Anglican+schism+in+the+offing%3F

B033-related legislation to move to House of Deputies

From Episcopal News Service-

An amended version of Resolution D025, concerning Episcopal elections and the Anglican Communion, is expected to move to the House of Deputies despite a July 11 split committee vote, possibly as early as Monday.

D025 is among more than a dozen B033-related resolutions submitted for consideration during the 76th General Convention July 8-17 in Anaheim. The World Mission Legislative Committee (WMC) received 13 resolutions; a WMC subgroup designed to work on framing a resolution to offer for a convention vote, elected to amend D025 from among the 13 "as a template" from which to address B033, according to the Rev. Ian T. Douglas, a committee member designated to speak with media representatives.

B033, adopted by General Convention 2006, was widely regarded as a moratorium on consecrating gay bishops.

It called on standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction "to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on the communion," which was assumed to pertain mainly to homosexual priests living opening in committed relationships.

B033 resolutions were assigned to the WMC because Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson thought a key question to be considered was "how do your decision in this church affect our sisters and brothers in Christ in the Anglican Communion" which falls under world mission, Douglas said.

Following a public hearing and several late-evening and early-morning sessions, a WMC subgroup offered an amended version July 11 for committee review and approval. After cordial discussion and revision, "perfecting the resolution and passed it handily" the vote split between the two houses -- with deputies voting 24-2 for approval and bishops rejecting it 3-2 -- appeared to come as a surprise.

More here-

http://www.episcopal-life.org/79901_112398_ENG_HTM.htm

Covenant aligns with Episcopal identity

From Episcopal Life Online-

Over the next few years, the provinces of the Anglican Communion will receive and study an invitation to deeper relationship through a formal covenant. The text (with a few procedural items still being edited) may be found online at the website of the Anglican Communion Office.
For our upcoming General Convention, I am a co-sponsor of a resolution, D020, titled "Provisional Acceptance of the Anglican Covenant." It builds on the foundation of two resolutions adopted by the last General Convention in 2006.

Resolution A159 affirmed the commitment of the Episcopal Church to the interdependent life of the Anglican Communion and our desire to live with our brother and sister Anglican churches in "the highest degree of communion possible." Resolution A166 affirmed the commitment of our church to participation in the development of an Anglican covenant.

The 2006 convention also (resolution A160) expressed regret that "our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our church and other parts of the communion" has "strained" the "bonds of affection" in the communion.

This year, D020 commends the Anglican covenant to our dioceses for study in the next triennium and asks for the creation of a special task force to consider what modifications of our Constitution and Canons might be required if the Episcopal Church were to adopt it.

Importantly, the resolution asks that as we study and discuss the covenant over the next three years, we make a voluntary commitment to live to the highest degree possible in accordance with both its spirit and its guidelines for collaborative life in the communion.

Which is to say—and this is the source of our resolution's title--that during this time of discernment we engage voluntarily, "provisionally," in the deeper patterns of mutuality, of communion-wide conversation and consultation envisioned by the covenant, showing thoughtful restraint when considering any action that might further strain relationships and complicate a decision to endorse and adopt the covenant in 2012.

More here-

http://www.episcopal-life.org/80050_111233_ENG_HTM.htm

Anglican divisions are ‘a struggle for power'

From Religious Intelligence

A struggle for power lies behind the Anglican Communion’s divisions over homosexuality, the former Archbishop of Armagh Lord Eames said last week at the annual Lecture to the College of St George at Windsor Castle.

Speaking to the topic: “The Mechanics of Reconciliation Today,” Lord Eames --- the chairman of the commission that prepared the Windsor Report --- explored reconciliation’s social, political and theological principles, seeking to define its terms.

The modern world was “experiencing a constant evaluation of the concept we call 'reconciliation',” he said. The “fracture of society, the break-down of human relationship, the tensions between nations and how human kind’s failure to understand the deep significance of our contribution to the fracturing of the natural world” had led to a reevaluation of the concept of reconciliation.

“My thesis,” Lord Eames said, was that “short of understanding the mechanics of reconciliation we have yet to define that process itself. So often the process we call 'reconciliation' has become a form of retreat when other efforts of human progress fail --- a sort of comfort zone when other means of solving problems fall short.”

The “endeavour to overcome division or misunderstanding” had also become an “an end in itself,” defeating its purpose. Reconciliation, he argued, was not a short-term goal but an on-going process, for “when agreement is reached it is usually only a beginning to any lasting appreciation of what has been achieved and each stage in the process can produce a fresh evaluation of what we set out to accomplish.”

The Windsor Report was an example. The 2005 report “contained sign-posts, laying out the possible routes to greater understanding of each other’s arguments,” he explained.

More here-

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=4592

Anglicans to re-evaluate how they interpret Scripture

The Anglican Consultative Council expressed support on Saturday for a project that will explore the ways Anglicans worldwide read and interpret Scripture.

The Bible in the Life of the Church project is being launched to build "understanding, trust and respect" among those who differ in biblical interpretations.

Formerly, the Anglican Communion had been called on in 2004 to "re-evaluate the ways in which we have read, heard, studied and digested scripture". The request, however, was largely neglected.

"We can no longer be content to drop random texts into arguments, imagining that the point is thereby proved, or indeed to sweep away sections of the New Testament as irrelevant to today's world, imagining that problems are thereby solved," a provision in the 2004 Windsor Report states.

"We need mature study, wise and prayerful discussion, and a joint commitment to hearing and obeying God as he speaks in scripture, to discovering more of the Jesus Christ to whom all authority is committed, and to being open to the fresh wind of the Spirit who inspired scripture in the first place.

"If our present difficulties force us to read and learn together from scripture in new ways, they will not have been without profit."

More here-

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/anglicans.to.reevaluate.how.they.interpret.scripture/23334.htm

Confusion Reigns as ACC Postpones Covenant

At the end of a hectic day of often confusing debate and parliamentary maneuvering in which Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams personally intervened four times, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) on May 8 postponed sending the third draft of the Anglican Covenant to the Communion’s provinces for adoption.

The Anglican Communion Institute has issued a statement decrying the proceedings as “an embarrassment to Anglicans everywhere, and a sad display of procedural confusion.”

The ACC had been asked to send the entire text to the provinces for adoption. However, some members considered allies to The Episcopal Church raised objections to the processes outlined in Section Four regarding dispute resolution. Their first motion to remove Section Four for review was voted down, but the main provisions of the defeated motion were then inserted into a separate resolution already under consideration. The ACC’s chairman, Bishop John Paterson of New Zealand, initially ruled this re-introduction out of order, but Archbishop Williams, who had called for a vote on the first motion, then challenged Bishop Paterson’s ruling and it was reversed. The pending resolution was amended to include the previously defeated provisions. After a break, Bishop Paterson announced that the resolution had passed.

“Evidence indicates that members did not understand what they were voting on, what the Archbishop of Canterbury was proposing, or why he was proposing it,” the ACI argued. “Amid much confusion, the chairman announced that the entire resolution had passed, even though there is no evidence it had even been voted on, the previous votes having been to amend the resolution, not pass it.”

As adopted, the resolution now asks Archbishop Williams, in consultation with the ACC’s secretary general, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, “to appoint a small working group to consider and consult with the provinces on Section Four and its possible revision, and to report to the next meeting of the Joint Standing Committee” of the Primates and the ACC in late 2009, and asks the JSC to approve a final form at that meeting.

The Rest-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/5/11/acc-postpones

Resolutions of ACC-14 from 8th May

Resolutions about the Windsor Process, proposed Covenenat and Anglican Church of Brazil can be found here.

http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2009/5/8/ACNS4616

ACC-14 Press Briefing 6th May 2009

Another important matter to come before ACC-14 is consideration of the final report of The Windsor Continuation Group. The WCG was set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2007 to advise him on the implementation of the recommendations of the Windsor Report, how best to carry forward the Windsor Process in the life of the Communion, and to consult on the "unfinished business" of the Report.

The Windsor Continuation Group was chaired by Archbishop Clive Handford, the retired President Bishop of Jerusalem & the Middle East.The Group presented a first set of observations at the Lambeth Conference in 2008 and met following Lambeth to prepare a final report. The Primates at their meeting in Alexandria, Egypt in February 2009 received it.
At ACC 14 the Archbishop of Canterbury made a presentation on the report and the meeting will be considering a resolution on this subject on Friday May 8.

A press briefing was held on Wednesday May 6 where Bishop Gregory Cameron spoke of the background and importance of the Windsor Continuation Report and answered questions.

http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2009/5/6/ACNS4608

Archbishop of Canterbury: Opening remarks to the ACC

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivers his opening remarks to the Anglican Consultative Council, which is meeting May 2-12 in Kingston, Jamaica.

Video here-

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81231_ENG_HTM.htm

ACC-14 Press Briefing 2nd May 2009

Today’s podcast the first from the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Kingston, Jamaica featured Canon Kenneth Kearon, the Secretary General of The Anglican Communion and Bishop John Paterson of Auckland, New Zealand the chair of ACC-14. They discussed the agenda of the meeting including the mission of the Anglican Communion, the Covenant for the Provinces of the Anglican Communion, the reception of the final report of the Windsor Continuation Process and how the council members will engage in the life and vitality of the local Church.

http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2009/5/3/ACNS4600

Communion Partners push covenant actions

The spokesman for a group of Episcopal Church bishops and clergy who released an April 22 statement challenging the polity of the church pledged the group's commitment to remaining in the Episcopal Church, but said that his diocese would consider signing onto a proposed Anglican Covenant if General Convention did not agree to do so.

Meanwhile, an expert on Episcopal Church polity labeled as "bizarre" the idea that individual bishops or dioceses could take that step, and questioned what meaning it would have in the wider Episcopal Church or Anglican Communion.

Diocese of Western Louisiana Bishop D. Bruce MacPherson told ENS April 28 that "one common thing [the Communion Partners bishops and rectors who signed the statement] have, and this has been shared from the beginning with the Presiding Bishop, [is that] we are committed to remaining a part of the Episcopal Church as opposed to some of the other directions that have been taken by others."

MacPherson, who said he helped organize the crafting of the statement and is the group's spokesman, acknowledged that the Communion Partners and some clergy and lay people who left the dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, San Joaquin and Quincy share "a concern for the constitution, the canons, the polity of the Episcopal Church being lived out in the manner they are designed to be by General Convention."

MacPherson said those concerns center on how the statement signers perceived the Episcopal Church's governance structure wielding power, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's effort to reorganize the four dioceses which lost many of their clergy and laity, and her actions in removing some of bishops involved.

More here-

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_107165_ENG_HTM.htm

That Anglican Communion rescue plan in full

From the London Telegraph-

Mea culpa. Yesterday I made fun of a plan to create a "multi-layered Anglican communion". Now that I have been leaked fuller details of the proposals, I can see how ingenious it is. You'll recall that the covenant, by virtue of a quasi disciplinary process, is likely to create a multi-layered communion, with the "conservative" provinces in the inner circle, with full voting rights at all the communion bodies, and the pro-gay liberals on the outer circle and presumably some rights removed, if they insist on consecrating more gay bishops or sanctioning gay marriage.

What I didn't know is that the proposals are tied to an intricate scale of "degrees of communion" - full, impaired, partial and broken - that will ascribed to different provinces by a Lambeth Communion Review Commission, which will itself be multi-layered, supervising Review Sub-Committees based on the Indaba model that will ascribe State of Communion Assessments to individual dioceses, non-territorial episcopal oversight areas and parishes. It would, of course, be inappropriate for the same Review Sub-Committees to cross the boundary between inner and outer circles of the Anglican Communion, and so - in a radical proposal drafted by Dr Rowan Williams himself - the Lambeth Communion Review Commission will divide into inner and outer circle Areas of Special Responsibility that will shadow each other's assessments.

More (read it)

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/04/24/that_anglican_communion_rescue_plan_in_full

Autonomy emphasised in new Covenant draft

From the Church Times (England)-

THE third draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant has been published and will be put before the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) at its meeting in Jamaica next month.

The Ridley Cambridge report has had input from 21 provinces as well as from bishops at the Lambeth Conference and from individuals and organisations. Its biggest innovation is a completely new fourth section, “Our Covenanted Life Together”, which emphasises respect for the autonomy of individual national Churches, and gives assurances that the Covenant cannot override the Constitution and Canons of any province.

The Covenant Design Group (CDG), chaired by the Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Revd Drexel Gomez, has wrestled throughout the process with particular concerns over who should resolve disputes in the Anglican Communion. The first version, the Nassau Draft, was felt to be too punitive in directing its provisions towards the possible exclusion of churches. Other sticking points have been fears of a central jurisdiction, and over-importance given to the Primates as final arbiters on the one hand, and the ACC, with its limitations, on the other.
In the St Andrew’s Draft of February 2008, the CDG said that it had resisted making the Covenant a definitive statement of Anglican ecclesiology, opting for a more open-ended approach and for a more “minimalist” approach to doctrinal argument.

Section 1 of the Ridley draft, “Our Inheritance of Faith”, gives new weight to the fact that the Church of England’s formularies — the 1662 Prayer Book and Ordinal and the Thirty-Nine Articles — have been appropriated — “that is, adapted, inculturated and treated — in different ways across the historic development of the provinces of the Anglican Communion”, the commentary says.

The section now reads: “The historic formularies of the Church of England, forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.”

More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=73458

Anglican Consultative Council to meet in Jamaica early May

From Canada-

The last time the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) met, in 2005, Canadian and American delegates sat on the sidelines. They were there to “attend but not participate” after their churches were censured for their more-liberal stand on the contentious issue of homosexuality.

At that meeting, the ACC had decided to endorse a request from the primates’ meeting that the two churches withdraw from the council at least until the 2008 Lambeth Conference because of the debate triggered by the consecration of a gay bishop in The Episcopal Church and the blessing of same-sex unions in the Vancouver-based diocese of New Westminster.
At this year’s meeting, scheduled May 1 to 13 in Kingston, Jamaica, Canadian and American delegates are joining representatives from 36 other provinces of the Anglican Communion, but the issue that brought about their exclusion in 2005 remains very much on the radar.

The meeting is expected to discuss the report of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG), including the proposal for a new province made by conservative Anglicans who have left their churches in North America over the issue of sexuality. The WCG was created by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2008 to find a way forward for the Communion, which has been deeply divided over the place of gays and lesbians in the Anglican church.

More here-

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/anglican-consultative-council-to-meet-in-jamaica-early-may/?cHash=e6422bc4ce

Latest Covenant Draft Vests Adoption and Discipline with Provinces

From the Living Church. The link to the latest draft can be found to the right at the top.

Provinces, not individual dioceses which violate the terms of a proposed Anglican Covenant, will be subject to a disciplinary process overseen by the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), according to the third draft of the document released on April 8. The document is to be discussed next month during the ACC meeting in Jamaica.

Meeting from March 29 to April 2 at Ridley Hall, a theological college in Cambridge, England, the Covenant Design Group revised the second “St Andrew’s” draft of the document. The group spent time reworking the document in light of reactions received from more than 20 Anglican provinces, the bishops attending the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and other comments.

Those adopting the covenant should agree to “participate in mediated conversations” when disputes arise, and commit to “see such processes through.” If unwilling to abide by the covenant’s terms and judged to be acting in a manner “incompatible with the covenant,” a disciplinary process overseen by the joint standing committee of the primates and ACC may be introduced. Repercussions include the potential for suspension from participation in global church councils. However, “it shall be for each church and each instrument to determine its own response to such recommendations” for discipline, the proposed covenant stated.

Divided into four sections, the document restates traditional creedal beliefs from a high-church perspective, but seeks to mollify both the liberal and conservative wings of the Anglican Communion. Churches are to “teach and act in continuity and consonance with scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, as received by the churches of the Anglican Communion.”

The rest here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/4/8/latest-covenant-draft-vests-adoption-and-discipline-with-provinces

An Anglican Covenant - The Third (Ridley Cambridge) Draft

The entire document as well as a pdf download can be found at the link below-

We, as Churches of the Anglican Communion, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, solemnly covenant together in these following affirmations and commitments. As people of God, drawn from "every nation, tribe, people and language" (Rev 7.9), we do this in order to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the gospel, to offer God's love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God's people to attain the full stature of Christ (Eph 4.3,13).

Section One: Our Inheritance of Faith

1.1 Each Church affirms:

(1.1.1) its communion in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(1.1.2) the catholic and apostolic faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation[2]. The historic formularies of the Church of England[3], forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.

(1.1.3) the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing all things necessary for salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith[4].
(1.1.4) the Apostles' Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith[5].

(1.1.5) the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - ministered with the unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him[6].

(1.1.6) the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church[7].

(1.1.7) the shared patterns of our common prayer and liturgy which form, sustain and nourish our worship of God and our faith and life together.

(1.1.8) its participation in the apostolic mission of the whole people of God, and that this mission is shared with other Churches and traditions beyond this Covenant.

1.2 In living out this inheritance of faith together in varying contexts, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:

http://www.aco.org/commission/covenant/ridley_cambridge/draft_text.cfm

Reports of the Death of the Episcopal Church are Greatly Exaggerated

The Lord is displacing the Episcopal Church." This pronouncement was made back in December by Bishop Bob Duncan, of the newly formed Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
A quick scan of the media coverage of the new church reveals that the press has by and large bought this line, and gone along with the story that a select group of missional mavericks have ridden into crumbling church buildings as the white knights destined by God to preserve the “one true Episcopal church.”
While the media seems snookered by the idea that the US Episcopal Church has become moribund, one should not make the mistake of extrapolating from trend to the end. While ongoing Anglican antics by select liberal and conservatives representing the more polar extremes of Anglicanism make Monty Python’s Bishop sketch pale by comparison, the US Episcopal Church “is not dead yet.”

When I interviewed author Phyllis Tickle, she placed this current crisis into a much-needed historical perspective.

As Bishop Mark Dyer has observed, about every five hundred years, the church feels compelled to have a giant rummage sale. During the last such upheaval the Great Reformation of five hundred years ago, Protestantism took over hegemony. But Roman Catholicism did not die. It just had to drop back and reconfigure. Each time a rummage sale has happened, in other words, whatever held pride of place simply gets broken apart into smaller pieces, and then it picks itself up and to use Diana Butler Bass’s term, “re-traditions.”

Read it all-

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religionandtheology/1298/reports_of_the_death_of_the_episcopal_church_are_greatly_exaggerated

Windsor process, covenant to top Anglican Consultative Council agenda

From Episcopal Life Online-

The Anglican Communion's most representative legislative body -- the Anglican Consultative Council -- will consider two documents at its upcoming meeting that "are key to discerning a way forward for the Anglican Communion in light of recent stresses caused by differences over matters of human sexuality," according to an April 3 news release from the Anglican Communion Office.
The two documents to be discussed by the ACC when it convenes May 1-13 in Kingston, Jamaica, are the proposed Anglican covenant and the Windsor Continuation Group's final report that was made public during the early February meeting of the leaders, known as primates, of the communion's provinces.

The latest draft of an Anglican covenant is expected to be released next week ahead of the ACC meeting. The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, one of two Episcopal Church members on the Covenant Design Group, told ENS April 3, at the conclusion of the design group's latest meeting, that it is "warmly commending this draft" to the ACC, which is the only communion body with the authority to ask the Anglican provinces to sign onto the covenant.

The Windsor Continuation Group has been charged with addressing questions arising from the 2004 Windsor Report, a document that recommended ways in which the Anglican Communion can maintain unity amid diversity of opinions, especially relating to human sexuality issues and theological interpretations. Its report calls for the development of a "pastoral council" and supported Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' plan to appoint "pastoral visitors" to assist in healing and reconciliation within the communion.

The continuation group also addressed the moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate. "If a way forward is to be found and mutual trust to be re-established, it is imperative that further aggravation and acts which cause offence, misunderstanding or hostility cease," the group's report states. At their February meeting, the primates called for "gracious restraint" with respect to such actions.

More-

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_106680_ENG_HTM.htm

Design Group works on Anglican covenant revision

From Episcopal Life Online-

The group charged with "designing" a covenant that could be used as a unifying set of principles among the provinces of the Anglican Communion met March 30-April 3 in Cambridge, England to work on a new revision of the text.
"A completed revision of the proposed covenant has been finished, along with a commentary explaining our work," the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, one of two Episcopal Church members on the Covenant Design Group, told ENS at the conclusion of the meeting. "We have taken seriously the array of responses received from the provinces and from around the communion and larger church."

The latest incarnation of the Anglican covenant, along with the design group's commentary, is expected to be "posted on the Anglican Communion website sometime next week," said Radner.

The design group, Radner says, is "warmly commending this draft" to the Anglican Consultative Council -- the communion's main legislative body and the only instrument with the authority to ask the Anglican provinces to sign onto the covenant -- for discussion at its May 1-13 meeting in Kingston, Jamaica.

The Covenant Design Group was appointed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on behalf of the primates and has been meeting since January 2007. The soon-to-be-released draft will be the third version of the covenant released by the design group. The provinces of the Anglican Communion had until March 9 to submit responses to the second draft (St. Andrew's Draft) for consideration by the design group at its meeting this week.

The idea for an Anglican covenant was first cited in the 2004 Windsor Report (paragraphs 113-120) and has been supported by all the instruments of communion as a way for the Anglican Communion to maintain unity amid differing viewpoints, especially on human sexuality issues and biblical interpretation.

More here-

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_106676_ENG_HTM.htm