ENS report on Kearon - Executive Council session

ENS:

The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, told the Episcopal Church's Executive Council June 18 that when Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Glasspool was ordained as the church's second openly gay, partnered bishop, the church ought to have known that it would face sanctions.


...
Kearon claimed that the communion's ecumenical dialogues "are at the point of collapse" and said that the last meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, of which Jefferts Schori is an elected member, "was probably the worst meeting I have experienced."
...
[Council member Diocese of Ohio Bishop Mark Hollingsworth] said that he was puzzled about how the communion could declare a moratorium on interventions and then say it cannot determine what constitutes an intervention.
...
The secretary general's visit was initiated by member Bruce Garner of Atlanta, Georgia, who suggested to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori that she invite Kearon, who was vacationing in North America, to the meeting.

Garner told ENS afterwards that he had "never witnessed so much obfuscation in such a short period of time" in his entire life.

Read it all.

Why the focus only on the Southern Cone's intervention when other provinces like Rwanda and Nigeria are open about their ongoing cross-boundary interventions?

Our earlier report is here.

Posted by John B. Chilton on June 18, 2010 2:39 PM | |
Comments (8)

Is it just me, or did Kearon sounds more -- and more -- like BP CEO Tony Hayward with each passing paragraph of this story?

And Kearon's comment that the growing diversity in the Communion is a "problem" that needs to be solved ... I can't even figure out how to respond to that.

Posted by Jim DeLa [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 18, 2010 3:24 PM

The analogy falls apart in several ways, Jim.

Kearon is toting water.

And if anything it's Hayward who sounds more like the ABC, not the other way around.

Hayward recognizes BP's cupability, the ABC does not recognize his own.

Hayward has nothing against Americans. The ABC does.

All that said, the passing of the Anglican Communion passes the trivial in comparison to the damage occurring in the Gulf.

Posted by John B. Chilton [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 18, 2010 3:35 PM

I disagree.

Hayward is toting water, too, for BP's chairman.

Hayward never actually admitted fault in congressional hearings yesterday.

How do you know if Hayward likes Americans or not? What does it matter?

All I said was that Kearon SOUNDED like Hayward. I stand by my observation.

Posted by Jim DeLa [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 18, 2010 3:42 PM

This is the best example of the duplicity coming from Lambeth Palace
[W]e are a voluntary communion and have no [ability] to act against a province," he said.

Of course, unless the "act" is against TEC, then Lambeth has the ability.

I agree with Bruce's "obfuscation" comment.

James Holloway

Posted by polysloguy [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 18, 2010 3:43 PM

Too bad the "communion's ecumenical dialogues are at the point of collapse" according to Kenneth Kearon. The Episcopal Church has lively full communion relationships with The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Old Catholic Churches of Utrecht, the Philippine Independent Church, the Mar Thoma Church, and fruitful dialogues with the Roman Catholic Church (ARCUSA), the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, the Moravians and a number of other communions.

Posted by Chris Epting [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 18, 2010 4:21 PM

And following on after Chris, we need to seek to form relationship with the Church of Sweden and the other Scandinavian churches who will be following her on similar issues in the near future. The primate of Sweden, Anders Wejryd studied in the United States and speaks fluent English. I was privileged to hear and meet him and his wife last week at a gathering of American Swedish Lutherans in the US. He would make a strong and valuable ally ecumenically. The fact that Sweden is also a member of the Lutheran World Federation of which Bishop Hanson (PB of the ELCA) is president, would provide a further way of cultivating that. Does anyone know why we have not sought this relationship before? It seems such a natural one.

Posted by Jeffrey L. Shy, M.D. [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 18, 2010 4:47 PM

Silly rabbits, don't you know that the ONLY ecumenical games in town for the ABC and the ACO are the RCs and (a distant second) the EOs? Lutherans, Moravians, Methodists, Old Catholics? Like Rowan cares about them?

JC Fisher

Posted by tgflux [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 23, 2010 3:40 AM

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