The American Presiding Bishop meets the press

By Sue Careless

Two people who probably didn’t want to bump into each other socially in Halifax were both invited guests of the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod: The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church; and the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion.

After all, Kearon had just sent letters to American representatives sitting on several international committees informing them that the Archbishop of Canterbury was pulling them from those committees.  

When asked by the media for her reaction to these dismissals, Jefferts Schori said, “I don’t think it helps dialogue to remove someone from the table.” She also assured the press that “our bilateral conversations will continue.”

She did not think that the “sanctions imposed” were fair. “It misrepresents who the Anglican Communion is. We have a variety of opinions.”

She was concerned that “one resolution in 1998 at a Lambeth Conference” was continuing to dominate the Communion’s thinking, noting how historically such resolutions have changed “as our understanding of ethical issues evolves, as it needs to” because of different contexts.

“We have a variety of understandings,” in the Anglican Communion. “No, we don’t have consensus on hot button issues.”    

Jefferts Schori emphasized in her speech to General Synod that she is the Primate or Presiding Bishop of not only the United States but also of fifteen other countries including Puerto Rico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Columbia, Equator, Honduras, the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Taiwan, Micronesia and the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. “We are struggling with what to call ourselves.”

The Church had been called The Episcopal Church of the USA (ECUSA) but recently it was shortened to simply The Episcopal Church (TEC), allowing it perhaps to better reflect its non-American dioceses.

During a press conference she was asked that if TEC’s status in the Anglican Communion continued to be diminished, would TEC consider the formation of a rival communion of like-minded churches.

She downplayed the possibility. “We tend not to get so excited about the few things that we disagree about.”

Numerical decline

She acknowledged in her speech that numerical growth was occurring in her overseas Provinces but in only four dioceses in the United States.

She did not elaborate but one of those four is the theologically conservative Diocese of South Carolina. Its orthodox bishop, Mark Lawrence, was elected but failed to receive the required number of votes in the national consent process which the Episcopal Church requires. When the diocese a second time nominated and voted in Lawrence, the national church accepted him by a narrow margin.

The American Primate is to be admired for her transparency in regularly releasing the statistics for The Episcopal Church even when the American numbers are plunging. In sad contrast the Anglican Church of Canada has released no new statistics since those of 2001. 

Pastoral relationships

Schori told the press that she found the cross-border interventions “painful and destructive.” She said, “It destroys pastoral relationships….It does spiritual violence to vowed relationships.”

(Those who seek alternative episcopal oversight would probably argue that the pastoral relationship has already died.)

David Jenkins with Eternity Magazine in Australia argues that “the chronology of the moratoria is important. Same sex-blessings and the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians were the cause of the cross-border interventions (the effect). If you remove the effect, the cause will remain. If you remove the cause (which the first two moratoria do) both the cause and effect will be gone.”    

Litigation

The Presiding Bishop had arrived in Canada accompanied by David Beers, her Chancellor (or top legal advisor). Jefferts Schori was asked by the press if she thought a fourth moratorium should be in place -- the cessation of litigation. “How does it look to the world when Christians are taking each other to court?” 

“The reality is that sometimes the Church needs to resort to the civil courts,” she answered, citing the fact that the former Bishop of Jerusalem was in court charged with absconding funds. She also mentioned other cases where churches in Sudan, Mexico, Columbia and Ecuador were also in the midst of litigation. “It is not unique to North America.”

Covenants

In her speech she stressed how what she termed “the Baptismal covenant” has shaped her church. “It has roused us, but it is not shared across the Communion.” She noted that it is only expressed in the alternative liturgies of the Canadian and New Zealand churches.

“What we’ve prayed together has shaped our theology,” she said. “We are not the same church we were thirty years ago. Our theology has developed from our liturgical reforms.”

While the American Primate was excited about the Baptismal covenant she was leery of the proposed Anglican Covenant. While the first three sections (about what is generally shared by Anglicans across the Communion) were fine, Section IV, even after several drafts, “continues to be about enforcement.” “Our convention will discuss it,” she said, but reminded the press that “no Province has yet adopted it.” (In all fairness there has not been time.)

Moreover, she told the press that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost Letter, which removed American representatives from international ecumenical dialogues and demoted the American representative on a commission on unity, faith and order to consultant only, “really jumped the Covenant process.”

But the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Kenneth Kearon, wrote in his memorandum of June 2 that: “the recent Episcopal election in Los Angeles [of a non-celibate lesbian] has created a situation where the Archbishop [of Canterbury] has been forced to act before the Covenant has been considered by most provinces.”       

The American Primate and the Communion’s Secretary General would have been in no mood to share the podium publicly at General Synod this past June. But since Jefferts Schori flew to Halifax with her top lawyer, they may well have held a private meeting with Kenneth Kearon behind closed doors.

Speaking of the Holy Spirit

Commentary by Sue Careless

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori closed her speech to General Synod with a simple benediction: “May the blessing of the Spirit be upon us all.”

Considering Scripture also warns us not to follow the spirit of this age it would be helpful, upon first reference at least, to refer to the “Holy Spirit” and only after that to the “Spirit.”

This use of just “Spirit” instead of “Holy Spirit” was even more pronounced in the Canadian Primate’s primatial address. Archbishop Fred Hiltz spoke repeatedly of “the Spirit,” using the pronoun “she” which has little biblical warrant. Jesus always spoke of the Holy Spirit as “he” or “him.”

If what we pray shapes our theology, our thinking about God, as Jefferts Schori and numerous theologians have always maintained, then, like the seraphim and cherubim around the throne of God, we need to cry more “Holy! Holy! Holy!”