Archbishop of CanterburyLambeth Palace, London
Sunday, May 6th, 2007
My dear Rowan
Grace and Peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus the Christ.
I have received your note expressing your reservations regarding my plans to install Bishop Martyn Minns as the first Missionary Bishop of CANA. Even though your spokesmen have publicized the letter and its general content I did not actually receive it until after the ceremony. I do, however, want to respond to your concerns and clarify the situation with regard to CANA. I am also enclosing a copy of my most recent letter to Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori.
We are a deeply divided Communion. As leaders of the Communion we have all spent enormous amounts of time, travelled huge distances - sometimes at great risk, and expended much needed financial resources in endless meetings, communiqués and reports – Lambeth Palace 2003, Dromantine 2005, Nottingham 2006 and Dar es Salaam 2007. We have developed numerous proposals, established various task forces and yet the division has only deepened. The decisions, actions, defiance and continuing intransigence of The Episcopal Church are at the heart of our crisis.
We have all sought ways to respond to the situation. As you well know the Church of Nigeria established CANA as a way for Nigerian congregations and other alienated Anglicans in North America to stay in the Communion. This is not something that brings any advantage to us – neither financial nor political. We have actually found it to be a very costly initiative and yet we believe that we have no other choice if we are to remain faithful to the gospel mandate. As I stated to you, and all of the primates in Dar es Salaam, although CANA is an initiative of the Church of Nigeria – and therefore a bonafide branch of the Communion - we have no desire to cling to it. CANA is for the Communion and we are more than happy to surrender it to the Communion once the conditions that prompted our division have been overturned.
We have sought to respond in a measured way. We delayed the election of our first CANA bishop until after General Convention 2006 to give The Episcopal Church every opportunity to embrace the recommendations of the Windsor report – to no avail. At the last meeting of the Church of Nigeria House of Bishops we deferred a decision regarding the election of additional suffragans for CANA out of respect for the Dar es Salaam process.
Sadly we have seen no such respect from the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church. Their most recent statement was both insulting and condescending and makes very clear that they have no intention of listening to the voice of the rest of the Communion. They are determined to pursue their own unbiblical agenda and exacerbate our current divisions.
In the middle of all of this the Lord’s name has been dishonoured. If we fail to act many will be lost to the church and thousands of souls will be imperiled. This we cannot and will not allow to happen. It is imperative that we continue to protect those at most risk while we seek a way forward that will offer hope for the future of our beleaguered Communion. It is to this vision that we in the Church of Nigeria and CANA remain committed.
Be assured of my prayers.
Sincerely,
+Peter Abuja
8 comments:
so did we ever see the original letter from Canterbury?
interesting your blog....y found this site from Anglican Mainstream. Do you have Facebook?
Blessings from an Anglican of Chile,
Javier Garcia
Are there any recorded sermons by Akinola (in english)? I'm curious as to how good a preacher he is- he's certainly very eloquent in his letters.
Also, has he ever met the Spongster? I think that would be funny to watch.
There is a facebook entry for BabyBlueAnglican. I don't know if the Primate has met Bishop Spong. They were both at Lambeth 98, though.
It's a powerful letter, but it is odd for ++Akinola to publish this when the original was private. Though this is in line, I don't think it's unethical to make your side public (that COA vestryman was a stupid political stunt).
It seems that the ABC must have set ++Akinola off, for this is as strongly worded as the one to ++KJS. I do ponder what is making him speak in such tones (this is edge of divorce type talk).
This reminds me of one of my friends in highschool. He got around as it were, however he hated to break up a relationship, so he'd push things until the girl would dump him. Maybe people are waiting for ++Akinola to dump the Communion.
It seems as if the ABC is unwilling to kick TEC out, but there is a set up for when ++Akinola acts out of conscience to have things in place to make him the bad guy. I'm guessing based on the sudden stance by him after long periods of silence, like he being pressed. We only have one side of this conversation.
Interesting that he suggests TEC is isolated from the rest of the communion - methinks he doeth protest too much and ignore other voices who support TEC's response to the Dar communique !
It was a pleasure to read ++Peter Abuja's letter ++Rowan Cantuar. This letter was clearly written in a spirit of love and charity but in the same penstrokes, it dealt head on with the with the wayward TEC.
A blessing upon all their households, and a round of butterbeers for all who enter the cafe today!!
The Catbird :-)
The really funny encounter was when Louie Crew introduced himself to Archbishop Akinola as a gay man. Not surpirsingly, the good Archbishop was somewhat taken aback. Most people don't introduce themsleves as homosexuals, but it served Louie's propaganda well. Crew then broadcast the story about how Archbishop Akinola was repulsed when he met a gay man.
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