Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

Lambeth Diary: Some Reflections

The fourth draft of the  Lambeth reflections document has now been published. You can read it all here and I've posted some of extracts below. Susan Russell of Integrity has commented on it. In this video, made for Times Online by Joanna Clegg, some leading conservatives comment on polygamy and other matters that have come up at Lambeth.

Lambeth Diary: 'When did you last beat your wife, Bishop?'

Context counts for so much. New York suffragan bishop is pictured here, speaking at the daily Episcopal Church briefing. The subject was domestic violence. Our resulting story is here. We also report today on Cardinal Kasper's address yesterday to the bishops, in which he said any hope of Rome recognising Anglican orders was 'finally at an end.' A translation of the speech in full can now be read here.

You would think from this picture that anyone who took on British Catherine would be brave or foolish. But you would be wrong. Scroll on down.

Lambeth Diary: Rowan accused of 'betrayal'

In a comment piece in tomorrow's Times, the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, will accuse the Arcbishop of Canterbury of a betrayal at the very deepest level. He will argue that even the Pope is elected by his peers, but Dr Williams in his office is little better than a remnant of colonialism. 'The spiritual leadership of a global communion of independent and autonomous Provinces should not be reduced to one man appointed by a secular government,' he says. Nor is the absence of Uganda, Nigeria and other Global South churches a sign that they want to leave the Communion. Far from it. It is a sign of how much they care that it endures. Read it all from when it goes online at 2100 BST and in the paper tomorrow, it is strong stuff!

(Update: AB Orombi's article is now available here, and see also our news story from the conference for that day.)

Lambeth Diary: 'Photodram'

Apologies for not posting a blog for an entire day. The weather was too hot and sultry and I was too tired, although I did manage to write a story for the paper which I'll try to do something on shortly. Thank you Herb Gunn, campaigner on behalf of African women and who did the interview with Bp Roskam that we write about two blogs hence, for this picture. There was a barrier erected to prevent journalists or other observers from getting this picture at the official conference photograph, but I snuck under it for a few seconds. Scroll down to see what happened next.

(Update: Just before you do that, a story is unfolding here of one bishop who wasn't registered but turned up anyway, assumed the name of a friend who was registered but wasn't here, and has attended the entire conference under his friend's name! Can anyone tell me who this imposter bishop is?)

Lambeth Diary: Rowan begs, 'Choose Life'

Incredibly powerful address from Rowan Williams to bishops at Lambeth tonight. 'At the moment, we seem often to be threatening death to each other, not offering life,' he says.'What some see as confused or reckless innovation in some provinces is felt as a body-blow to the integrity of mission and a matter of literal physical risk to Christians.  The reaction to this is in turn felt as an annihilating judgement on a whole local church, undermining its legitimacy and pouring scorn on its witness.  We need to speak life to each other; and that means change.  I’ve made no secret of what I think that change should be — a Covenant that recognizes the need to grow towards each other (and also recognizes that not all may choose that way).  I find it hard at present to see another way forward that would avoid further disintegration.  But whatever your views on this, at least ask the question :  ‘Having heard the other person, the other group, as fully and fairly as I can, what generous initiative can I take to break through into a new and transformed relation of communion in Christ?’ Read it all below. Our brief report on it is here. Picture Scott Gunn.

Lambeth Diary: Storm clouds gather

Did any readers of this blog learn as a child the 'whether the weather' poem? Here's a reminder:

'Whether the weather be mild or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.'

It was perhaps precipitate of me to suggest on Radio Ulster's Sunday Sequence, linked to by Kendall Harmon, that there has been a defining change of mood at the conference. When the sun came out last week, everything began looking sunny, bishops started smiling at each other and us, and a sunny outcome seemed on the cards. This picture shows a bishop under a shady tree talking on his mobile telephone. Climate change has been one of the main debates here, as Mary Schjonberg reports for Episcopal Life.

Lambeth Diary: Nigerian gay Christian activist granted asylum

Davis Mac-Iyalla, the Nigerian gay Christian activist, has been granted asylum by the UK government. He is living here with Nigerian friends in north London. His application was fast-tracked after he fled here from death threats and physical assault in Nigeria. He was held in detention for a week before his case was heard, and he fully expected more time in detention and was amazed to be set free. He learned on Friday that he had been granted asylum. This is extremely rare here and a clear indication of how seriously the British Government is taking the attacks and threats made against him in Nigeria. It will also surely send a signal to bishops meeting here about this whole issue, to be on the agenda of indaba groups this week. I am indebted to Integrity USA's monthly newsletter, published yesterday, for this news. The picture, taken at the Primates' Meeting at Dar es Salaam, shows Davis with the Primate of The Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Canadian Primate Archbishop Andrew Hutchison. See our story Monday on the views of people in the pews on the gay issue. For the full survey go to ComRes. Update: This is what Stephen Bates thinks about some of the comments on this blog...

Lambeth Diary: The 'Fifth Instrument'

Lambeth Diary: Colbert reports

Lambeth Diary: Walk and Witness

Joanna Clegg, the Oxford theology student working with The Times on work experience throughout the Lambeth Conference, shot this video for us on Thursday's march. Regular readers will know that during the Lambeth Conference, she is keeping us sane in Times house in Harbledown with daily Bible studies round the pool at 8am. I hear from conference insiders that there is real and deep unhappiness with the standard of the Bible study texts the bishops are being forced to study. I'll try and get some written examples of the unbelieveable banalities that have reached my ears here. Meanwhile, unlike the 650 Anglican bishops imprisoned on this campus, apparently designed by prison architects with the prevention of student riots in mind, Times readers can enjoy the real thing, below, courtesy of Joanna, a pupil of the excellent Alister McGrath.

Lambeth Diary: Anglican 'Holy Office'

The Anglican Communion is on the rack and the torture continues. It surely cannot be stretched much longer before it is torn apart. This is the pic accompanying our online story at The Times.

'Fancy some same sex marriage? Better watch out then.... ' (Caption put on pic by someone at Times Online.)

The second observations document of the Windsor Continuation Group has just dropped. (Update: Anglican Mainstream now has the text online.) It gives more detail of the Principles of Canon Law Project, which we wrote about earlier and which is being talked of by primates as the 'Fifth Instrument of Communion'. I am told it will not be so much a Catholic-style 'Code of Canon Law' as a 'blueprint' of Canon Law. However, comparisons with the Roman Church will become even more inevitable because of another plan, to set up a new Faith and Order Commission.

Lambeth diary: Rival strategies unveiled

The bishops of The Episcopal Church have come to the Lambeth Conference well- briefed on how to present their arguments cogently and persuasively in the indaba groups. Dr Philip Turner, former Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, has written analysis of this for the Anglican Communion Institute, of which he is VP. The full briefing document is here . Common Cause Partnership, Bishop Bob Duncan's group, is petitioning Gafcon for province status, giving Gafcon virtual ecclesial authority. And I understand that when the next report of the Windsor Continuation Group is published next week, it will contain a 'bombshell' that will be pleasing to the conservative evangelial side but not so perhaps to the liberals. There is also news from the Anglican Mainstream fringe meeting at the conference last night. Conservative evangelical bishops, who we were asked not to name, were told: 'In indaba group after indaba group, find out how many people support resolution 1.10. [The one ten years ago that enforced a traditional, Biblical stance on gay sex.] I am putting my hand up in my indaba group, I invite my brothers and sisters to do the same when they get the opportunity.' So it appears, you can take indaba out of Africa, but you can't take good old democratic infighting out of the West. It's business as usual at Lambeth, and one way or another, these 650 bishops are determined to have a vote and make it count.

Picture from the Lambeth Conference Market Place by Richard Pohle.

The Lambeth Walk: Cantuar speaks

After marching against poverty, about 650 Anglican bishops and their wives enjoyed tea at Buckingham Palace. Read our news report and watch video of the march here. Afterwards, they had lunch in a large marquee at Lambeth Palace. There menu was cold lemon and thyme scented breast of chicken with fresh asparagus and porcini mushroom relish,
summer bean and coriander, tomato, basil and mozzarella served with hot minted new potatoes. Pudding was dark chocolate and raspberry tart with raspberry ripple ice cream, topped off with coffee and white chocolate raspberries. To wash it down they drank Pino Grigio or Chiraz or cranberry and elderflower fruit punch. The cream marquee was decorated with a dozen chandeliers down the middle. Bishops were apparently amazed and thyy know their hospitality. There were orange roses and fans at the side but it was still steaming. Bishops fanned themelves with menus. There were long queues for the plush portable loos with solid wooden flooring, designer handwash and handcream.

Note: the Lambeth Conference is suffering a financial shortfall of between £1 million and £2 million, which is of course nothing to the debt owed by many of the countries represented by the bishops at the lunch.

Cantuar slays 'dragon' of Gafcon

Watch our video.

Shot in the Market Place at Lambeth Conference, Canterbury.

See also our round-up of the views of different bishops at Lambeth.

Lambeth Diary:church suffering 'spiritual Alzheimers' says Rome

Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Evangelisation, has just addressed the Lambeth Conference bishops. This cardinal is understood to be one of those favouring a positive reception for disaffected Anglicans. This is what he told the 650 bishops: 'Much is spoken today of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. By analogy, their symptoms can, at times, be found even in our own Christian communities. For example, when we live myopically in the fleeting present, oblivious of our past heritage and apostolic traditions, we could well be suffering from spiritual Alzheimer's. And when we behave in a disorderly manner, going whimsically our own way without any co-ordination with the head or the other members of our community, it could be ecclesial Parkinson's.'

Lambeth Diary: 'Gene must resign, US church must go'

Lambeth Diary: Into the 'Miry Pit' of Chaos.

It's about a hundred degrees and getting hotter in the Big Top at Lambeth but the £1 million black hole in the budget at the Lambeth Conference means they can't afford air conditioning. Expect fainting bishops to be ferried out by ambulances any moment now, if they don't start shooting each other first. The press conference this morning was a farce. Communications officers who are generally being extremely helpful declined to comment on who is here for reasons of 'security' but declined to say what the 'security' issues were. Apparently there are some Nigerian bishops at the conference but we are not allowed to know who they are. Even the totally harmless and innocuous Church Press here are  being denied access to the evening Eucharists. As for me, I was told yesterday that it was worth applying to attend the afternoon indaba groups. Today there is one called 'Never say No to Media',  led by Rev Dr Joshva Raha, tutor at the Centre for Mission Studies at Queen's, Birmingham. I applied and they said no.

The conference is falling apart and it is only day two of official business. The Sudanese bishops, who were, astonishingly, stationed as Salisbury with the US Presiding Bishop and her team before the conference, have almost derailed the whole thing by virtually calling for Gene Robinson's resignation. One of their two statements today is here.

Lambeth Diary: faith people 'moderate' on gays

This video is a brief report from the conference yesterday.

Also online today is the latest news report emerging from Anglican goings on.

Lambeth Diary: Gay Africans tell their stories

For today's story inThe Times go here. More detail below.

Lambeth Diary: Ecumenicals condemn 'with love'

The Archbishop of Canterbury is shown here at last night's ecumenical service chatting to Russia's Archbishop Hilarion and the Greek representative. Cardinal's Kasper and Diaz from Rome are not here yet. As we touch on at the end of our Sunday Times story today, the messages to Dr Rowan Williams from the guests were light incarnate, but this merely to sweeten the bitter pills within. Will the Anglican Communion take their medecine? I doubt it. The letters were helpfully printed at the end of the order of service, some extracts are below. See also Riazat Butt's excellent and fuller report in The Observer.

(Photo by George Conger. See his report in Christianity Today on the 'crack-up' of the Communion. Many thanks to Peter Crumpler and staff for finding a way at the final hour to get the grateful press into the service in the Big Top.)

Lambeth Diary: Invited bishop told: 'Go home!'

Ed Salmon, the former bishop of South Carolina who is either retired or on sabbatical, depending on which bit of the Church is doing the talking, was invited to the Lambeth Conference. He is 75 and he says he is retired. Nevertheless, he was delighted to be asked to come to Lambeth. The invites were sent out before he retired and he assumed this was because of the grey area surrounding his precise status at present. He booked his flights, hotels and so on. Just one week before he was due to come, he was told he wasn't invited after all. So he came anyway and I met him in the little flat in Canterbury where Anglican Mainstream has its hq. He and Gene Robinson, both uninvited bishops at the conference, are both here still, preaching God's word on the fringes.

Lambeth Diary: Boycotting primates hit back

Gafcon statement on Rowan Williams just in: 'Many are contending for and proclaiming the orthodox faith throughout the Anglican Communion. Their efforts are, however, undermined by those who are clearly pursuing a false gospel. We are not claiming to be a sinless church. Our concern is with false teaching which justifies sin in the name of Christianity. These are not merely matters of different perspectives and emphases. They have led to unbiblical practice in faith and morals, resulting in impaired and broken communion.  We long for all orthodox Anglicans to join in resisting this development.' See our story today on how the Archbishop of Canterbury is doing better than many imagine. The story is being updated for later editions to include reference to the Gafcon statement, produced in full below, along with the seven Primates' damning critique of the Covenant process. Akinola is leading the charge.

Bible Study: 'Shining a light in the darkness.'

Joanna  Clegg is studying theology at Oxford under the tutelage of Alister McGrath. She is with The Times on work experience for the duration of the Lambeth Conference. I wanted her with us to keep us spiritually centred during what will inevitably be a stressful three weeks, and to help avoid a repetition of Lambeth 1998. Her first study this morning was radically helpful, looking at the Word, truth, darkness and light. We thought we would do St John's Gospel, to be in parallel with what the bishops are doing. Jo will also be taking videos and photographs for us at the conference. Do come and say hello at the media centre in Darwin.

Lambeth Diary: Nigerian bishop flees

The only Nigerian bishop to register for Lambeth, Cyril Okorocha, Bishop of Owerri, has fled Britain and gone back home for fear of 'reprisals', a source has told The Times. It appears he never even made it to Canterbury. He attended his son's graduation in Manchester, the ostensible reason for his being in the country in the first place, and a few local events in the parish of Oxshott in Surrey which was hosting him. A source tells me that his departure was prompted by an "element" of concern for his wife back home, and of what the Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola's response might be to his being here. The Nation reported that Dr Akinola was threatening sanctions against any bishop that attended Lambeth.

Lambeth Diary: Anglicans in Recovery

This book has been out for a couple of months. It is of interest now though because it has been given to all 650 bishops at the Lambeth Conference as a reader in preparation for the discussion on human sexuality a week Thursday, 31st July. The book, published by SPCK , claims to represent all views across the communion on sexuality, although a friend tells me the 'only conservative' among the authors is Michael Poon, considered a bit of a loose canon by many in the Global South. None of the authors was present at Gafcon. From the comments below, you'll see that many of the authors consider themselves to be conservatives however. Some extracts from the book are below. The Lambeth Reader can also now be downloaded here

Lambeth Diary: the 'Clean and the Unclean'

My suspicions have been alerted by the helpful comment from 'anon' on the previous post. At Lambeth, the journos have been divided into the 'clean' and 'unclean'. You can guess which mob I'm corralled in with, and some of you probably think I deserve it. See my latest here. But pause to think for a moment. After dealing with a thankfully long-gone staff member at Lambeth Palace, a former senior editor at The Times told me, his voice shaking with stunned incredulity: 'They're just like the Communist Party.' He meant the Communist Party before the wall came down. Read and believe if you like the official stuff trickling in a tghtly-controlled way out of Jim Rosenthal's entirely independent press operation operating from a place I've yet to track down somewhere on the university campus. This is where the 'on side' 'journalists', many of whom seem by coincidence to wear episcopal clerical collars, are permitted to hang out. I am sure the citizens of the former USSR were similarly enlightened by what Pravda produced on a daily basis. The real operation, the concrete prison where proper journalists do their work, is being run by the staff from Church House. Peter Crumpler and his minions, themselves shut away in an even more terrible bleak hole of a broom cupboard than our own, are brilliant. (Update: Incredibly, TEC might be coming to our rescue. A series of unofficial bishop briefings is to be organised, beginning this evening. I've been asked to make clear that these are nothing at all to do with the official Lambeth press operation.)

Lambeth Diary: Welcome to the Circus.

The Archbishop of Canterbury warned the 650 Lambeth Conference bishops tonight that the problems of the Anglican Communion are not going to be resolved in the next three weeks at Kent. The Lambeth Reader which we write about today, Thurs, gives some idea why in its essay on the role of bishops. Dr Rowan Williams was speaking at the reception for bishops in the big blue tent on campus at the university, on the outskirts of Canterbury, as news emerged from the US of plans to extend the Anglican Use scheme in the to allow ecclesial entities to go over to Rome. Cardinal Walter Kasper of the Vatican's Council for Christian Unity is at the Lambeth Conference, and senior sources at the conference denied the story was accurate. Clearly they had not read Newark Archbishop John J Myers' speech. It was delivered at the US Anglican Use conference last Friday. My earlier story highlighted some of the divisions that exist in the Vatican over how to respond to the Anglican crisis. Cardinal Kasper is speaking here on Saturday. Kasper doesn't want defectors encouraged because he doesn't want to exacerbate Anglican schism. Others in the Vatican believe the Anglican Communion is irrevocably ruptured and want to give the red carpet and even the red hat treatment to Anglican trads. Hence the imminent beatification of Newman that we wrote about this week. Cardinal Ivan Dias, who heads the Congregation for Evangelisaton, is here at Lambeth as an 'observer'. There are some suggesting that it's not the Anglicans he's observing so much as Cardinal Kasper.

Gene protester pinned

  A contact has shown me a picture of the same long-haired motorcycling protester as the heckler filmed by the BBC at the Gene Robinson service at Giles Fraser's St Mary's Putney. My last 'seeking Graham Maxwell' post produced an insant response from one Father Simon, who reckons it might be the same person.  I got the name slightly wrong, it is Max Maxwell not Graham. If you follow this link to Father Simon Rundell SCP, he's now blogged it himself as well, having been prompted by my enquiry to make the connection. He tells me that his church, St Thomas the Apostle in Gosport, Hants, is an ordinary, Anglo-Catholic parish that likes taking groups of children to Walsingham every now and again. The parish just happens to have nothing against gays. This was what first attracted Maxwell's attention. He pops up regularly on Fr Simon's blog, citing chunks of the King James Bible, most of which Father Simon removes. But one example still remains. I like the photo though, don't you? Good looking guy. Have sent him an email, awaiting a response. Will of course let all of you know what he says, when and if one ever comes! Or perhaps it is foolish to court trouble by inviting this person of extreme views onto this blog. I am relying on all my regulars to go to battle on behalf of reason, sanity and inclusivity, if and when he appears here.

Anglican tradition is to ordain women says theologian

I like the fact that the only truly 'flying bishop' in the Anglican Communion is a woman. TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is in England at the moment, ready for the Lambeth Conference. Tomorrow, Sunday, she is preaching at Salisbury if you can get along, although she has some stiff competition with Gene Robinson preaching at St Mary's Putney, also tomorrow. This morning, on Today, US theologian Professor Gary Macy was explaining his theory that the Church ordained women up until the 12th century and that women had episcopal authority until much later. Earlier this week he sent me his entire paper on the subject. I've also put a couple of extracts below.

Summer of Schism: 'Go to Lambeth, don't come back.'

This one made me chuckle, and I apologise if that seems irreverent. Australia's Bishop of Ballarat, the Right Rev Michael Hough, is a puzzled huff because some of his clergy have told him: 'Go to Lambeth and don't come back.' They've told him to 'get a job over there.' Or as we say in England, 'On yer bike, bishop!'

It makes a change, I suppose, from Australian bishops being urged by dioceses not to go at all. But do we really want him here?  Bishop David Silk, who was his predecessor at Ballarat and is now retired back in the UK, tells me Bishop Hough is here on sabbatical, studying at St Stephen's House. He is a great friend of Bishop Hough and from what he says, it seems he might be quite an asset to the CofE. Neither he nor Bishop Hough can quite understand why he's been attacked in this way. You can read more about it on the bishop's own blog.

Summer of Schism: 'Why women must be bishops'

'Bad behavior in electoral synods is not the only thing that has distressed me here and made me VERY thoughtful. We need a process of re-education throughout the Communion, I think (as Rowan has said) and particularly in ‘liberal’ areas like this. The wide-spread ignorance of the basics of Anglicanism, how it came to be and therefore why it enshrines what it enshrines - the Anglican contribution to the coming great church - astounds me. However, there it is and one must soldier on.'

This is just one of the comments sent me by Christina Rees of Watch from the petition for women bishops launched earlier this week at Westminster Abbey. As we report today, there is a danger the legislation will fall completely on Monday. In 29 study groups today, Saturday, before the arguing starts in earnest, synod members are discussing 'to what extent should the Church of England seek to continue to accommodate the present diversity of views within its life on the issue of women's ordination' and 'what are the implications of that for any possible special arrangements for those who on grounds of theological conviction have difficulties over the ordination of women.' The groups have also been asked to consider whether, in the light of the pros and cons of the various options, synod members are clear about the choices they have to make.

All the comments are below. (I'll finish tidying them up later.) Some of them, you will surely agree, are quite moving. At the top is a Roman Catholic priest. It would be interesting if, were all the traditionalist Anglicans to go over to Rome, the debate went over with them. I've published the entire lot below.

Summer of Schism: Archbishop calls for rethink on gays

Archbishop Alan Harper, Archbishop of Armagh and primate of All-Ireland, has perhaps not received the attention he has deserved since taking over from the high-profile Robin Eames, lead author of the Windsor Report. My mission today is to change that. He has this morning delivered a powerful and, I have to say, rather convincing address making the intellectual case for a new look at St Paul's texts on homosexuality. What is clever is that he has done this, not in the usual irritatingly woolly way we have come to expect from Anglican liberal bishops, but in a rigorous, faithful fashion, drawing directly on Richard Hooker's Lawes on Ecclesiastical Polity. This was of course the exact same text cited with such power by Uganda's primate Archbishop Henry Orombi at Gafcon. You can download the full address here and our story on this is now online. He was speaking at the USPG annual conference at Swanwick. Local clergy have condemned him as a 'false teacher', as the BBC's William Crawley reports on his blog.

Summer of Schism: Gregory Cameron on the 'dark side'

Canon Gregory Cameron, deputy general secretary at the Anglican Communion Office and the architect of the Covenant, has as we report delivered a strong speech at the Dean's Library in St Asaph. You can download the entire lecture here . He warned Anglicans against making homosexuality a "shibboleth"  but also criticised the "dark side" of western Anglicanism which assumes superiority over Anglicans in the developing world.

The Dragon of Chaos and the Splitting of the Shellfish

Time to herald the Lambeth Conference. Time to move on from Gafcon. Time to praise the Lord, and with a mere minor weekend schism in between now and then when the General Synod meets in York, we can at last shift our attention to the big event of the decade, Lambeth 2008. I was enjoying a rare day off today but have been been inspired to blog once more by reading the Bible studies up on the Lambeth website, just relaunched, with a wealth of good material. You might find some other enjoyable bits but this is my favourite so far, from the Lambeth study booklet Signs on the Way. Thank you to the Lambeth Design Group for this timely reminder of why it is sometimes fun to be an Anglican.

Trads threaten walk-out over women

As we report exclusively today, more than 1,300 clergy and bishops in the Church of England, 60 per cent of whom are still serving, have written an open letter to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York threatening to leave the Church if women are consecrated bishops with no legal provisions for opponents. You can download here the full letter and list of signatories. The 11 bishops are the three flyers, Ebbsfleet, Richborough and Beverley, plus the flyer-without-wings Fulham, and then the suffragans and assistants Burnley, Horsham, Plymouth, Edmonton, Newcastle, Whitby and Pontefract. Two of them, Simon Morris of London and Philip Corbett of Southwell, both in their twenties, were only ordained last Sunday.

Update: from The Times leader today, 3 July: 'The more immediate challenge this weekend, however, comes not from Foca but from clergy unreconciled to women bishops. They want permanent, binding safeguards for traditionalists which Dr Williams and others are unwilling to concede for fear of enshrining discrimination. He must therefore address their defiance in York as vigorously as he has replied to the Gafcon rebels. On his performance hangs not only the unity of the Church of England but the prospects for the fractious Lambeth conference. Rarely has a challenge been as daunting.' Also in the same paper, George Walden says Dr Williams is a closet liberal, and that he must come out of the closet and campaign for full equality for homosexuals in the church, or resign.

Summer of Schism: Cantuar slams Gafcon

A strong statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams warning of the risks being taken by Gafcon. He urges them to think carefully, says the way ahead will be problematic and challenges those who have accepted clergy disciplined for 'scandalous' behaviour in another jurisdiction to think again. Here I understand him to have been referring to priests such as TEC's Sam Pascoe, stripped of his licence for an inappropriate relationship with an adult parishioner and then reinstated under a Ugandan bishop. Read it all below. This pic shows London's Rev Rosemary Priestly with her baby Joseph, seven weeks, at a press conference at Westminster Abbey this morning to promote the argument for women bishops to be approved by General Synod this coming weekend without any special legal protection for opponents. Senior clergy from the Abbey, St Paul's and Southwark were there, as well as MPs and Baroness Howe of the Lords. Responses from CofE's Bishop of Durham and TEC's Bishop John Chane of Washington below.