tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post6920774952350931242..comments2024-02-19T07:24:42.397-08:00Comments on Anglican Curmudgeon: Common Sense and the CovenantA. S. Haleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-47026565166430063032010-01-04T19:38:58.297-08:002010-01-04T19:38:58.297-08:00I thank both Fr. Noll and Fr. Stockton for their r...I thank both Fr. Noll and Fr. Stockton for their responses above. To Fr. Noll, I can say only that time will tell whether the changes to the role of the Standing Committee will have any significance. Certainly they will have no significance until after 2012, because the Committee has declared that no new changes to the membership schedule will be entertained before that date, when they can determine better the reception the Covenant has received among those churches which are already members. But my point was that it will be June 2012 when, by refusing to enable adoption of the Covenant at its General Convention, ECUSA will finally and irrevocably signal its decision to walk apart. After that, it will have no longer any role to play on the Steering Committee with regard to accepting new members -- because under the terms of 4.1.4, to be recognized as a new member is to be invited to join the Covenant, and section 4.1.8 will exclude any church that has refused the original invitation to subscribe to the Covenant from participating further in any decision as to who outside the Communion shall be invited to participate. So I do not see the problem you envision, unless ECUSA forces the Primates' hand, and simply refuses to agree that it cannot participate.<br /><br />Even in that event, however, what could it do? The ABC simply could declare that ECUSA's "vote" will not count, no matter how it is cast, along with the votes of Brazil and any other Church that declines to adopt the Covenant.<br /><br />Fr Stockton, it is not clear from the latest draft whether any act of Parliament will be necessary to enable the CoE to have the ABC sign the Covenant in its name. The extensive comments supplied by the CoE to the Ridley Draft certainly do not refer to any such difficulty. I am waiting for Prof. Norman Doe, or the ABC's Canon John Rees, to issue a statement on the subject before coming to any conclusion.<br /><br />I am not certain to what "rhetorical question earlier on" to which you are referring. I did ask this rhetorical question: "The Anglican Communion has existed for over a hundred and forty years. Why does it need a Covenant now?" But the time period of 140 years I mention agrees with your dating of the Communion from the first Lambeth Conference -- which was my intent.A. S. Haleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-8482079305025105022010-01-04T16:46:11.738-08:002010-01-04T16:46:11.738-08:00You are quite right about the Churches that almost...You are quite right about the Churches that almost certainly will not be signatory to this proposed 'covenant,' and so be willing to bear the consequences of declaring, again, their independence from the Church of England. The Church you do not mention, though, and the most ironic in its inability to sign, is the Church of England. The British Parliament will never give Lord Canterbury his way; they will never cede authority over the Church of England to someone outside England. BTW, the rhetorical question earlier on is quite mistaken. The Anglican Communion most certainly has not been in existence for over 400 years. The question confuses the Church of England with the Communion. It was not until 1867 that the first Lambeth Conference was held, after sufficient colonial Churches gained their independence. It was until 1969 that the Anglican Consultative Council first met as the first real collaboration of Churches descendant from the Church of England. Anglophile mythology is not borne out by the facts.Jim Stocktonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15090609898067865168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-75663875946651245402009-12-30T22:54:05.135-08:002009-12-30T22:54:05.135-08:00Dear Mr. Haley,
Thank you for your thoughts on th...Dear Mr. Haley,<br /><br />Thank you for your thoughts on the Covenant. I for one have agreed that it is a potential blessing to the Communion and will have more to say later. Two quick comments:<br /><br />1. I have grave reservations about the powers being given to the Standing Committee, especially as it has been reconstituted in the new (and unpublished) Constitution of the ACC. Compare its power in matters of Communion order with that of the Primates’ Meeting, who will have at best a minority voice on the Standing Committee. You blame much of the current chaos in the Communion on the ABC’s allowing ECUSA to do its own thing. But did he not use the (Joint) Standing Committee as an accomplice in thwarting the will of the Primates and the Communion majority? Why would this not continue to happen and with added legitimacy?<br /><br />2. You are right to point to 4.2.8. as excluding non-covenanters from disciplinary decisions. But the more important function of the Standing Committee will be in setting out the procedures for admitting new churches to the ACC Schedule (we know from Kearon’s letter that in the beyond-the-looking glass Constitution, the Standing Committee has veto power over admission). So TEC opts out of the Covenant and the Communion Partners and/or ACNA ask to be added to the Schedule. Katherine Schori and Ian Douglas will have a full voice and vote in this matter.<br /><br />I do not see the Global South churches, especially the FCA churches, rushing en masse to adopt the Covenant. They got burned in Jamaica, and I think they will be careful to read the fine print of this new improved version.<br /><br />Stephen NollUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05033847986593883350noreply@blogger.com