I wonder if the Bishop of Rochester and *others* are looking for a flat refusal? The Gafconsite now explains that Canterbury is not necessarily necessary (anyhow). Sort of another selfrighteously signed and delivered ¨I told you so.¨

Colin Podmore makes the argument, in a paper circulated to the members of this General Synod, that neither the Lambeth Conference nor the Primates' Meeting can legislate for member churches.

To quote one characteristic passage, 4.8: "The Anglican Communion is not a single church but a communion of churches and extra-provincial dioceses. Although the churches of the Communion are interdependent, legally speaking each is autonomous. The bishops at a Lambeth Conference therefore cannot make legally binding canons."

It would seem to follow that the Queen's Prerogative will not be infringed upon if, as Supreme Governor, she gives assent to a Covenant that has no legally binding authority over the Church of England. I suspect this is how the Church of England proposes to cut the Gordian Knot of Covenant and Prerogative.

The whole document is interesting reading -- I've commented at Thinking Anglicans on the strikingly high view Podmore takes of the authority of bishops-in-synod.

"The Governance of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion" (GS MISC 910)

-- Charlotte Pressler

The original comment was made over a year ago. The question surely is, does the current draft still contain anything which amounts to such a delegation, or ability to "give direction" to the CofE.

It seems clear that the HoB of the CofE doesn't think so.

Thank you, Simon and Charlotte. I see Simon now has a post on this topic at Thinking Anglicans and I'll be updating this post in light of that.

Yes, if the Covenant has no teeth, it will be acceptable to those who take the advice of Galatians 5:15.

http://bible.cc/galatians/5-15.htm
"But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another."

There's always the chance that I'm thick as a brick, but so far what I'm taking from this is that any judicatory portions of an Anglican Covenant will apply to the rest of us, but not the CofE. This doesn't pass the smell test.

Interested readers will want to follow comments to Simon's post,
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/003607.html

In Peter Owen's post
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/003607.html
that preceded Simon's there have been two relevant comments that may get lost

Posted by: Charlotte on Wednesday, 21 January 2009 at 10:51pm GMT

and

Posted by: Father Ron Smith on Thursday, 22 January 2009 at 9:55am GMT

Sorry, John but I think the Royal Prerogative is a complete red herring here. The issue is a simple matter of English law, as Mr Fittall has said.

The General Synod can, if it wishes, legislate in relation to the Covenant. However, the House of Bishops has now indicated that they intend no such course of action. Neither Parliament nor Crown is involved in the passing of a Resolution, or in the making of an Act of Synod. It is entirely a synodical responsibility.

But in any case, regardless of what procedure the synod adopts, it remains true that:

'it would be unlawful for the General Synod to delegate its decision making powers to the primates, and that this therefore means that it could not sign up to a Covenant which purported to give the primates of the Communion the ability to give ‘direction’ about the course of action that the Church of England should take.’

John, Simon is making my point: I think the C of E is the "hard case" -- that is, if they can sign the Covenant, it will not have the teeth to "give direction" to them or anyone else. Unless the final draft softens the language of discipline further, the Covenant will not work for England. Of course, the other way around this -- and I am reluctant to mention it should I give anyone any ideas -- would be to craft an explicit "out clause" or "grandfather clause" for the C of E as the "mother church of Anglicanism" -- without whom there can be no "Anglican Covenant." That would also solve the problem raised about the Archbishop of Canterbury.

There was something else in Dr. Podmore's paper that struck me, as an American. It was the way he envisages the Church of England's bishops, (as well as the Primates and the bishops of the Communion) as having a sort of esprit de corps or sense of collective responsibility, such that, when the moment came, they would close ranks and act as one, with all the inherent moral authority due to their position.

But do all bishops of the Episcopal Church act as Dr. Podmore thinks they ought? This is where a very important difference exists. Our bishops do not all act in concert. We've had bishops who refused to alow the Presiding Bishop to conduct a service within their territories, refused (for years) to take Communion with their fellow bishops, refused (again, for years) to pay assessments to the national church (and so on), and gave maximum publicity to all of their refusals. This extreme individualism is hardly the sort of esprit de corps Dr. Padmore envisiages.

I'm not sure our individualism is such a good thing, though I'm not at all sure what to do about it.

Charlotte Pressler

How, in heaven's name, would I write a blog post for humble pew warmers explaining this - I don't know what to call it except game-playing - by primates and bishops? It looks to me like a great waste of time.

June Butler