Posted on 10/28/2005 7:10:38 PM PDT by sionnsar
As of mid-October, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference has received no referrals, one of its 13 members reports.
Robert Tong, a Sydney solicitor and lay member of the panel, told the Anglican Church League in Sydney on Oct. 10 the “panel awaits its first reference from the archbishop.”
The dioceses of Fort Worth and Recife, Brazil, as well as parishes in Anglican Churches of Australia and Canada and the Episcopal Church over the past four months have submitted appeals for arbitration to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who according to its charter, will then submit them for investigation and arbitration to the panel. Mr. Tong’s lecture is the first public statement of the status of these requests by a panel member.
In an address titled “A Journey to a Far Country,” given at the Anglican Church League dinner at the start of the Diocese of Sydney’s annual synod, Mr. Tong outlined the history of the Panel of Reference and summarized its work so far.
He reported that a “very cordial and useful first meeting” was held July 13-14 in London, “where we considered our mandate, settled procedure, and issued a communiqué.”
Noting the terms of membership included a pledge of secrecy, Mr. Tong said, “There is no more that I can say about the panel,” but he offered a historical tour of heresy trials and doctrinal disputes from 19th-century Anglican history.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has no legal jurisdiction, nor does this panel,” Mr. Tong said. “The 150 years of international Anglicanism has turned its face against international jurisdictional solutions to Anglican problems. Debate, persuasion and peer pressure are the only tools available to those who wish to hold the line.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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