New York, USA - The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, sent a lengthy letter to the members of his warring Anglican Communion on Friday, saying that both sides had violated the Communion’s boundaries and put the church in crisis.
The archbishop of Canterbury posted a stern letter on Friday.
He criticized the American branch, the Episcopal Church, for departing from the Communion’s consensus on Scripture by ordaining an openly gay bishop and blessing same-sex unions, “in the name of the church.”
But the archbishop faulted conservative prelates in Africa, Asia and Latin America for annexing American parishes and an entire California diocese that have recently left the Episcopal Church, and for ordaining conservative Americans as bishops and priests.
“There can be no doubt that these ordinations have not been encouraged or legitimized by the Communion over all,” the archbishop wrote, contradicting those conservatives who said they were acting with his approval.
Of all the new moves, he wrote: “On the ground, it creates rivalry and confusion. It opens the door to complex and unedifying legal wrangles in civil courts.”
In many ways, the letter was an acknowledgment that the Anglican Communion’s factions have fought to a standstill. A meeting of American bishops in New Orleans in September did not produce the clear reversal and apology that conservatives have demanded.
In response to that meeting, leaders of the international provinces came to no consensus, he wrote.
Archbishop Williams said the only solution was to keep talking, and moving toward creating a “covenant” to clarify the terms of membership in the Communion. He said he would not postpone or cancel the Lambeth Conference next summer. It is the church’s large international gathering, occurring once a decade.
He stuck to his earlier resolution not to invite either Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, or the conservative Americans who have recently been ordained as bishops and priests by African prelates.
The Anglican church in Nigeria threatened to boycott the Lambeth Conference if its newly ordained American bishops and priests were not allowed to attend. Archbishop Williams warned, “The refusal to meet can be a refusal of the cross — and so of the resurrection.”
He called for the church and its opponents to participate in “professionally facilitated conversations” and said he had identified people who could help mediate.
In a brief response, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, wrote: “I am glad to hear of the archbishop’s interest in facilitating further conversations. While I have repeatedly offered to engage in dialogue with those who are most unhappy, the offer has not yet been seriously engaged. Perhaps a personal call from the archbishop will bring to the table those who have thus far been unwilling to talk.”
The Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, a conservative strategist, found comfort in much of the letter, especially on the authority of Scripture.
But he said he was troubled by the appearance of an “equivalency” between the errors of the Episcopal Church and the conservatives.
Reverend Harmon said that the archbishop had consistently failed to discipline the American church and that the letter provided “truth, but no consequences.”
He also questioned whether the call for professional mediation was a sign that the archbishop had underestimated the “degree of the breach” in the United States.
Several conservative bishops did not return calls for comment.
Bishop Robinson is on sabbatical, his spokesman said.
A recently formed group of liberal bishops, priests and laypeople from several countries responded to the letter. The steering committee of the group, the Chicago Consultation, said, “The archbishop’s lengthy letter contains not a word of comfort to gay and lesbian Christians.”
“We are especially troubled,” they added, “by the absence of openly gay members on the bodies that may ultimately resolve the issues at hand. The archbishop’s unwillingness to include gay and lesbian Christians in this process perpetuates the bigotry he purports to deplore.”
The letter was posted at www.anglicancommunion.org.
The archbishop wrote: “It is historically an aspect of the role of the archbishop of Canterbury to ‘articulate the mind of the Communion’ in moments of tension and controversy.
“I do so out of the profound conviction that the existence of our Communion is truly a gift of God to the wholeness of Christ’s Church and that all of us will be seriously wounded and diminished if our Communion fractures any further.”