Steve Waring writes in the Living Church on the first of a two-day meeting of the Anglican Communion Network Council at the St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas:In his opening address, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Network, listed the names of 17 Network leaders, including four bishops, who have left The Episcopal Church within the past year. Bishop Duncan’s first term as moderator is also drawing to a conclusion. During a question-and-answer session after his morning address, he said he planned to stand for re-election, but only if delegates endorsed the Common Cause partnership with other Anglican groups currently not in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In an interview with a reporter for The Living Church Canon Daryl Fenton, chief operating officer for the Network, acknowledged that the distance between The Episcopal Church leadership and the Network has grown to the size of a chasm, but he downplayed the likelihood of a formal departure occurring during this meeting.
“Even in safe dioceses the level of dissatisfaction is growing,” he said. “People are becoming radicalized and less patient. We really are concerned about catholicity, however. We consider ourselves to be under the authority of the primates and we will not do anything which would undercut the careful agreements they have already worked out.”
In their February communiqué, the primates requested a response from the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church by Sept. 30. The deadline falls five days after the conclusion of the fall House of Bishops’ meeting. During his address, Bishop Duncan said the Network bishops had agreed to attend the House of Bishops’ meeting in order not to abandon the wider coalition of ‘Windsor’ bishops in what Bishop Duncan said was “their last stand.”
Read the whole thing here.
No comments:
Post a Comment