Posted on 02/14/2007 9:41:42 PM PST by sionnsar
A temporary Episcopal split is apparently on the table:
Anglican primates of The Global South will propose a two-province solution to the divisions of doctrine and discipline confronting The Episcopal Church at this weeks primates meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Gathered at a hotel next door to the official venue of the primates meeting, members of the Global South coalition of primates met with U.S. and Canadian traditionalist leaders Feb. 11-12 to discuss plans for a possible future shape of the Anglican Communion. A second meeting of primates of the CAPA (Conference of Anglican Provinces of Africa) was planned for today, and the primates meeting itself begins Wednesday.
The Global South bloc at the primates meeting will ask their follow primates to give approval to plans outlined in the Kigali Communique published last September and developed in a paper titled "The Road to Lambeth" that establishes a separate Anglican jurisdiction in the United States in communion with the See of Canterbury. This jurisdiction would gather "Windsor-loyal" Episcopalians, parishes, dioceses, clergy and bishops into a second church.
In addition to current members of The Episcopal Church, the new province would include the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), and would be open to reunion with the Continuing Anglican churches in the United States.
The ecclesiastical structure of the proposed province would be governed by a college of bishops. From among their ranks, the college would nominate three candidates to be presiding bishop, one of whom would be selected as primate of the province by the primates meeting. This second American Presiding Bishop would have voice and vote at future primates meetings under the proposals worked out by the Global South coalition and their allies, sources close to the coalition told a reporter.
The two-province solution is seen as an interim measure until such time as an Anglican Covenant can be formulated and adopted that would define who is, and who is not, an Anglican, sources noted, adding these plans had been presented to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in advance of this weeks gathering.
Will this fly? It's hard to say. It's a reasonable proposal although TEC won't go along and it's likely that its allies, particularly Canada, won't either. But that may not matter anymore if the Global South primates stay united and are willing to walk away. Whether the rest of the primates would be willing to risk the Anglican Communion over a temporary measure seems unlikely.
This would be a temporary measure in name only. The use of the euphamism in this instance is simply a tool of Change Management 101. If one were to describe it honestly, one would say that it is an interim measure to provide time for orthodox Anglicans to transition from one TEC to the new province without ever being out of the communion, and to give time for the TEC revisionists to get used to the idea of, and to plan for, going it alone as a global revisionist deutero-Anglican entity.
Good morning...not stated is whether it would require TEC to allow parishes who wish to leave to take their property with them. Obviously it would have include some type of consensus, and a suspension of legal filings...ergo, it ain't happening..
BTW.have you see/read anything yet about what's happening so far today?
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary solution.
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