Shining a little more light.Lay Canon Elizabeth Pavers one of three members on the Anglican Consultative Council from the Church of England, and is a member of the ACC Standing Committee.She was therefore one of the international guests at the recent House of Bishops in New Orleans which was attended by the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and the Primates. Kendall Harmon interviews Canon Pavers with new information on the "report" from the Joint Standing Committee - including the revelation that she does not agree with the reports' conclusions. The report erroneously lists her as assenting to the report's conclusions regarding TEC compliance, which we learn from Kendall's interview is simply not true.
When the report was issued, Canon Paver noted, it was in such haste that she was shocked. “ It wasn’t in the time frame we were led to believe when we went to New Orleans. It was my understanding that it was to be a report only to the Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore it did not need to be finalized so quickly.”
The report was drafted NOT in the United States with a full committee around the table, but was done by email. In Mrs. Paver’s view this prevented the committee from doing its work properly.
In any event, once the report was being finalized quickly, Elizabeth Paver read the material. This created a dilemma for her. “I think the process in New Orleans was accurately reported,” she observed. However there was a division on the committee itself as to whether the American House of Bishops had responded adequately to the requests of the Primates in Tanzania, and the report did not reflect this division of opinion.
“When the report was published, its conclusion represented a majority view, but it certainly was not a unanimous view,” she asserted.
When the report was made public in its final form, Mrs. Paver was confused. She was listed as having not responded, which was accurate as she had missed the Tuesday deadline but following conversations with ACC staff on the day of publication she agreed that the Report was an accurate account of the Standing Committees conclusions but needed to reflect the minority view also. She agreed with the description of what transpired in New Orleans, but also agreed in principle with Bishop Mouneer Anis that what the the primates called for had not been provided. She was assured that Bishop Mouneer’s Response would be appended to the report in full which covered the areas that concerned her.
It is important for people to understand the crucial significance of the call for a moratorium on same sex blessings, Mrs. Paver insisted. “From my perspective, anything other than a full moratorium would mean that the whole report is brought into disrepute,” she observed.“If there is no moratorium and this can be demonstrated then in my view the Joint Standing Committee will need to issue a further statement.”
Read the whole thing here.
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