Category: Anglican Communion

I finally found a chance to watch +Katherin Jefferts Schori’s webcast Conversation with the Church that was broadcast from Holy Trinity, Wall Street on Wednesday. It was impressive, both for its content and for the use of technology. +KJS gave (scripted) reflections on the Primates meeting, then took questions from a live audience, by phone and by e-mail.

At one point, a woman rang up to ask +KJS whether she had really said something she was reported to have said and if so to defend it. The caller then said, ‘I’m a priest. If you have said it, I don’t how to make sense of it. I feel undermined.’

I very much doubt the woman felt satisfied by +KJS’s answer, but what struck me was the importance of the transaction. This was probably the first and last time that the priest had been able to ask the Presiding Bishop a question and get an immediate response. This is as near as they would come to meeting and talking. And this is true for the vast majority of priests in The Episcopal Church.

Contrast that with my morning on Friday. I got the 7am ferry and a couple of trains so that I could be in Edinburgh for a committee meeting by 10am. The primus walked in a few minutes later, and we stood talking about what happened in Tanzania as we drank our coffee. No one else joined in — I suspect because most of the other people in the room had seen the primus within the past two weeks, and had already spoken with him about it.

Then, we went into the meeting to discuss routine sorts of things and the primus ‘blended in’ like anyone else. Over lunch we talked about Synods and leaking roofs, then he went to tend to other matters: his own diocese, or perhaps one of the other two he is overseeing during their vacancies.

This is what I love about this church. If we have a question for the primus we can ask it. Over coffee. In person. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.

And he will usually answer — as a human being. As one priest to another. As primus. Take your pick.

Being a small church has its benefits. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for that woman in the States, lifting the phone to ring into the webcast, knowing that it was her only chance to ‘speak’ with her primate.

Now that you’ve all had a chance to read primary sources, a little something from the BBC interview with +Mark Sist from the diocese of New York:

BBC Do you feel as if you are being asked to choose between the communion on the one hand and on the other the gay and lesbian members of your church?

+MS I certainly think that some people would like us to make that choice. I would certainly hope that the majority of the communion is not asking us to make that choice.

BBC: But if they do ask you to make that choice on what side will you step?

+MS I would have to say, as I have said before, that in terms of the Gay and Lesbian Community, they are we. They are not guests in our church about which we can make a decision about whether they will be a part of us or not. They are who we are. So if it should come to some sort of bright line, I certainly would not abandon members of my own diocese, my own community for the benefit of people who do not value their presence.

I haven’t posted anything about the recent Primate’s meeting because the web has been awash with news. But increasingly, the volume of news is becoming confusing and there is a shocking lack of truth telling in some quarters.

So the teacher in me has come out: please read the primary sources. Read them and read them again, and form your own response. And then, read whatever else you like. Critique the critics. Be wary of people are too happy with the communique and who seem not to hear the people screaming in pain all around.

Primary sources: Primates’ Communique and Draft Covenant

Addendum– this reflection, from +Katherine Jefferts Schori is worth reading too.