Sydney Delays Lambeth Response

(The Rev.) George Conger
08/09/2007

The bishops of the Diocese of Sydney have told Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams that they will not respond to his invitation to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion’s bishops until they learn how The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops responds to the primates’ communiqué.

If the bishops who participated in the consecration of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson as Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire attend Lambeth, the bishops of Sydney might not, Archbishop Peter Jensen and his five suffragans said.

Writing to Archbishop Williams on July 30, Sydney’s bishops thanked him for their invitation to the 2008 gathering, saying “it would give us a great deal of joy to be able to join you” in Canterbury. However, “the timing of the invitation has proved difficult,” they explained, because they were first “looking for the response” of the American House of Bishops before giving their final answer.

“In view of the real hesitations that we experience in joining with those who have consecrated Bishop Gene Robinson, and with others who have allowed for the blessing of same-sex unions, and given the significance of these events, we feel that we cannot give an answer to your kind invitation until later in the year,” they stated.

A spokesman for the Anglican Consultative Council told The Living Church the invitations to Lambeth had been “coming in, in their hundreds,” but offered no other details as to who had registered to date. The Rev. Canon James Rosenthal also said the July 31 deadline to respond to the archbishop’s invitation had been extended because some bishops “have stated they had not received their invitations yet.”

Approximately a third of the Communion’s bishops could forego the conference. Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and other Global South provinces have voiced concern about attending the gathering without first settling the dispute with The Episcopal Church.

Last month the Bishop of Winchester, England, the Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, estimated that six in 10 English bishops would consider skipping Lambeth if the bishops who consecrated Bishop Robinson were included, while the other 40 percent would be inclined not to go to Lambeth if the Americans were excluded.

This article comes from The Living Church Foundation
http://www.livingchurch.org/

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