Tanzania: Something to Keep in Mind

If the Primates Meeting so much as lifts a finger in discipline of Presiding Bishop Katherine Schori and the Episcopal Church, expect incoherent screaming to commence. Amidst that noise will be the claim that the Primates have usurped authority.

But it turns out that the Windsor Report itself recognizes and recommends an enhanced role for the Primates Meeting:

The [Lambeth] Commission is convinced that the Primates’ Meeting should continue to provide an important element in the life of the Communion as the body which affirms the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference in the life of Anglicanism. In that respect, the Primates’ Meeting should serve formally as the Standing Committee of the Lambeth Conference and as such should monitor developments in furtherance of resolutions of the Lambeth Conference in addition to the process of reception. This will allow the Primates’ Meeting to begin the enhanced responsibility which successive Lambeth Conferences have recommended. It should be a primary forum for the strengthening of the mutual life of the provinces, and be respected by individual primates and the provinces they lead as an instrument through which new developments may be honestly addressed.

This is not a section of the Windsor Report you hear much about. Admittedly, I had forgotten about this or even not noticed it in the first place. But it is certainly one to keep in mind as the Primates Meeting begins and, not long afterward, when the screaming commences.


Hat tip to titusonenine.