I am sitting next to a power supply in a rapidly filling conference room waiting on the arrival of Anglican dignitaries. Here is Ms Neva Fox’s summary preview of the Conference sent via email:
Today’s news conference with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will be held following the conclusion of discussions with the House of Bishops scheduled for approximately 12:30 pm.
Also in the news conference will be Bishop Charles Jenkins of the Diocese of Louisiana, Bishop Duncan Gray of Mississippi, and Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam of New York.
The news conference will be held in the Cabildo room.
The room set aside was apparently deemed too small to hold the press gaggle currently gathering.
I know Kevin Kallsen is going to live stream the conference, but I’ll live blog it too for those with slower connections. The initial text will be unedited and live (not memorex…not word for word). The edited text will be more complete but still not a word for word transcript. I do my best to get complete and accurate quotes and phrases and succeed somewhat but, again, a live-blog is not a word for word record.
You will be able to read it all here as it happens, so stay tuned…
KJS will open the conference:
KJS: Good afternoon. We are in the midst of the 2nd day of the HOB meeting. We’ve had a number of visitors from the Anglican Communion who represent the ACC and the PSC and we have had the pleasure of the ABC’s company. We have had stimulating and provocative discussion. We will continue to meet here together after the ABC departs. We will reconvene in plenary to frame a response to this discussion. It has been a privileged to meet and have the ABC’s physical presence. That has been important to our consideration of the issues that lie before us.
ABC: OPENING REMARKS
I and the other members of the Joint Stadning Committee were very glad to accept the invitation of the Presiding Bishop to join the House of Bishops for part of this session.
One of the greatest privileges of being here has been the chance to see something of quite outstanding work being done by the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta in the ongoing work of social reconstruction in a city still deeply scarred by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina two years ago. I was able to visit a project yesterday in the lower 9th Ward and to see the wonderfully committed and vibrant new church community that has sprung up into being around the construction work. This new Church of All Souls has come into being as a direct result of the sacrificial generosity if the Episcopal Church in this city and its work with those who have suffered most, and it should be an inspiration to the entire communion.
It has been a valuable opportunity to listen carefully to the thinking of the bishops here on the problems that face the Communion; and also for us to share with the House some perspectives from elsewhere in the Communion. I think that in light of the conversations we have come to a better understanding of the House in response to the questions and proposals of the Dar Es Salaam Primates’ Meeting. I hope that the House, equally, has understood more fully what those questions an proposals were meant to achieve. The House will continue to reflect on them over the weekend.
Despite what has been claimed there is no “ultimatum” involved. The Primates asked for a response by 30 September simply because we were aware that this was the meeting of the House likely to be formulating such a response. The ACC and Primates Joint Standing Committee will be reading and digesting what the Bishops have to say, and shall let me know their thoughts on it early next week. After this I shall be sharing what they say, along with my own assessments, with the Primates and others, inviting their advice in the next couple of weeks. I hope these days will result in a constructive and fresh way forward for all of us.
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Gray: We have spoken in candor and charity. Now we move ahead. I look forward to interpreting our conversation over the last few days in the context of mission. I thank the planning committee for the design of this conference.
Jenkins: There is no such thing as spare people. There are no throw away lives. That is what we are struggling with as a communion and what we have struggled with in LA. That is what we are struggling with in mission. If I could get a word across it would be that we in this church stand for the dignity of humanity. Most of you have not stood in food lines or had to relieve yourself on a stairway with 100 other people in the Superdome. We do say that there is a god-given dignity in everyone. All of us stand strongly for all of God’s people.
Roskam: I have been happy to have our guests. It was good to have the conversation that we have had. It was challenging and honest. We need time to digest and continue the conversation. I am glad that this meeting is happening. My brother bishops have demonstrated the desire to stay together across the divide. I think we all share the call to mission and our baptismal vow to respect the dignity of every human being. I appreciate this fellowship at this time.
Questions:
Bates: ABC, have you learned anything new that you did not know before about the TEC?
ABC: yes, I have a clearer understanding of the polity of TEC and some of the assumptions that the bishops of the TEC make about the Church and its polity. Some have spoken to me about the baptismal covenant, as it works here, its importance, and how the concepts they take from the covenant make it easier to come to conclusions here that others cannot come too world-wide.
Question: Why stay together?
ABC: It would be an admission of defeat if we were to break apart. It could happen but God forbid that we cannot work together through these issues. The need we have for each other is very deep. I think the churches elsewhere need the experiences of the older churches and the older churches need the younger churches. We are not yet at the point where we are ready to admit defeat
Reuters: Do you see any kind of compromise in your response to the DES requests
KJS: we have already begun to make responses and I expect that over the weekend and in our plenary we will continue our response and hope to have a fill one by the end of the meeting
Question: How encouraged are you by what you saw here?
ABC: I was particularly moved by the diocese of Louisiana and their efforts at reconstruction. I am also encouraged by the patience of the bishops here and that we have been able to continue talking and listening.
Virtue: You have been asked to postpone the Lambeth Conference, in particular by the Archbishop of Nigeria. What do you say to this suggestion?
ABC: It is not only from their quarter, others have asked the same. I am not persuaded. I am not sure that we could ever define what an adequate “cooling off period” could look like. I do not want the next years spent in anxiety about when and whether Lambeth will occur. I feel the need to keep faith with the conference planners and with those across the communion for whom the regular meeting is a matter of nourishment and growth…particularly the smaller provinces that should not be held hostage by the political maneuvers of the larger ones.
I have said to Archbishop Akinola that I feel meeting at lambeth is a necessary meeting and it is the cross we are called to bear in order to see the resurrection at the other side however difficult it is for those involved.
Question: What is your assessment of the current unity of the Communion in light of this meeting?
ABC: I do not think this day and a half has made much of a difference. I think it will depend on what emerges by the end of the meeting. While some strong words have been exchanged, I have been struck by the desire to stay together I have seen here.
Integrity: What word of hope do you have for the GLBT baptized?
ABC: I would hope that a gay or lesbian person who would want to be a Christian would want affirmation and challenge and would want to be challenged as to what is the way to live life as a follower of Christ. I hope we are clarifying the belief that is being and has been expressed in a number of conferences that violence against gay and lesbian people is inexcusable.
Certainly gay and lesbian people have a place in the church as do all the baptised. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place gay and lesbian people may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far the traditional theology of the church lets us move in that direction.
Kevin Kallsen: Is healing available to those with homosexual inclinations?
ABC: That question presupposes that homosexual inclination is a disease. I do not assume that myself.
NYT: Archbishop. The address that +Anis gave the HOB today states in clear terms what some primates expect. I wanted to ask how reflective that message is of what came out of DES. Do you sense any room for compromise on the Communion side?
ABC: The primates said the DES is the place to start. Some would give a more robust interpretation some less. That is the nature of a communiqué with common language. It has been represented sadly as a set of demands and deadlines. It was not that way. We are inevitably in a position of compromise. It would be a mistake to see DES as questions that must be answered without room for maneuver.
Conger: what is the good of the Anglican Communion?
ABC: The glory of Anglicanism is to have a Christian body united by a common faith but without centralized authority. (More but I could not follow)
Question: Isn’t this in large part about money? If the US church did not want to hold on to the property of the US conservative congregations, they would let them go. If the rest of the Communion did not need US money would it not recognize a second province for the conservatives? Isn’t this about money?
ABC: NO, if all of those factors were taken away there would still be the various difficulties we face theologically. This is not about money.
Mary Ailes: one thing we have heard often is that we are free to go but we have to leave the buildings behind. Some hear that as: We have no need of you but we need your buildings What would you say to those who want to be Anglican but cannot in good conscience remain Episcopalian?
ABC: Start by looking for arrangements and situations within what is there because grace is given through even hopeless places. Isn’t God’s grace still given sacramentally in the Episcopal Church? I would be slow to look for solutions elsewhere.
It is distressing to see the levels of litigation. I would hope and pray that there is a possibility of stopping this from being dragged through the courts interminably.
ENS: There have been interventions throughout the Episcopal Church Does this trouble you?
ABC: yes, there is a long history of unease about this in the Church. I would really, really prefer and hope to work for a local solution. My predecessor would not recognize illicit bishops I find myself in the same difficulty. More interventions make it difficult to find viable solutions.
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