Posted on 01/27/2007 8:50:15 PM PST by Huber
The Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana and president of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice, has accepted an invitation to attend the primates’ meeting in Tanzania on Feb. 14. He joins the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, as the other voices from The Episcopal Church that Archbishop of Canterbury proposed including in an Advent letter to the primates.
“The Episcopal Church (TEC) is not in any way a monochrome body and we need to be aware of the full range of conviction within it,” Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote. “I am sure that other primates, like myself, will welcome the clear declarations by several bishops and diocesan conventions (including those dioceses represented at the Camp Allen meeting earlier this year) of their unequivocal support for the process and recommendations of the Windsor Report. There is much to build upon here. There are many in TEC who are deeply concerned as to how they should secure their relationships with the rest of the Communion; I hope we can listen patiently to these anxieties.”
In a Jan. 26 interview with The Living Church, Bishop MacPherson said he had very few specific details as to what responsibilities he and Bishop Duncan would have during the meeting or how long the two diocesan bishops would be staying in Tanzania.
“I was asked to attend by the Archbishop of Canterbury,” he said. “I spoke with the Presiding Bishop after accepting and informed her of the invitation and my decision.”
Last month after a Dec. 4-6 meeting of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice in Weehawken, N.J., Episcopal News Service published an article in which it was noted that the council had discouraged Archbishop Williams from inviting “additional ‘dissenting’ bishops from this church” to the February 14-19 primates’ meeting in Tanzania. Bishop MacPherson said the council was not scheduled to meet again before the primates’ meeting, but the group often conducts business by telephone conference call and it was possible that they would confer in that manner prior to the start of the primates’ meeting.
“This is an important meeting, a time during which the Windsor Report and the direction forward with the development of a Covenant will play a significant part in their time together,” Bishop MacPherson wrote in a letter to his clergy that was published on the internet website Drell’s Descants. “Importantly, the response of our General Convention 2006 to the Windsor Report will be addressed as a part of this work. The outcome of this gathering of the primates could have a significant impact on not only Episcopal Church, but the Communion as a whole. I ask that you hold this meeting in your prayers, and know that in a few days I will be sending out a suggested prayer for use in our worship, and commended to the diocese for personal use.”
Bishop MacPherson said the prayer resource for the primates’ meeting was planned before he received the invitation to participate.
“This invitation is not just about me, but it is about us, the Diocese of Western Louisiana and the faithful ministry that we hold up before the wider church,” Bishop MacPherson wrote in his letter to the clergy.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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