[ENS, Dar es Salaam] Theological education in the Anglican Communion, as well as issues of poverty eradication, economic justice and environmental ncerns — as embodied in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — were central to the Primates’ discussions February 17 as they met for their third day of sessions near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The morning session was devoted to an extended conversation about theological education, which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has upheld as a priority for the Anglican Communion.

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Southern Africa and Hellen Wangusa, Anglican Observer at the United Nations, who had delivered afternoon presentations to the Primates on the MDGs, briefed the media on the day’s proceedings.

Adopted by the world’s leaders in 2000, the eight MDGs’ core objective is to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, but also include goals to achieve environmental sustainability and to address preventable disease.

For its part, the Episcopal Church has adopted as its chief mission priority for the next three years peace and justice work framed by the MDGS, which Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori affirms as central in her own ministry.

Wangusa was officially installed February 4 as the new Anglican Observer at the United Nations during the 11 a.m. Eucharist at New York’s Trinity Church, Wall Street.

She will be installed again on February 18, this time in the presence of the Primates, duringa Solemn Eucharist in the Anglican Cathedral in Zanzibar.

In addressing the media, Wangusa said that she had the honor of sitting in the Primates’ Meeting for the first time and offering an overview of the goals and an analysis of the related issues. She said she is encouraged by the depth of the Primates’ interest around the MDGs.

She explained that the UN is a “norm-setting institution,” but that “it won’t come to a country and force it to implement what it agreed. So there is that challenge, that limitation. Even if it doesn’t help us eliminate poverty, it creates the forum for us to engage” in the issues that face the Communion.

Feeding All

Wangusa insisted that the world has to go beyond the threshold the MDGs are providing.

“Anglicans have a mandate that tells us that if one part of the body is sick, the rest of the body is sick,” Wangusa told the media. “So what we are saying at this meeting is a half is not enough, we have to go beyond a half.”

“Same thing on hunger. When Christ got people together, and they got hungry, he said what do we have? He didn’t feed half or a fraction, he fed all of them — we cannot say this half eats and this half doesn’t.”

Ndungane told media that the Primates had engaged in a lively afternoon discussion on economic justice. “In our world there is global apartheid where the rich are getting ‘stinkingly’ rich and the poor are getting desperately poor,” he said. “We know that there are more than 800 million people living in poverty in the world … this is not only immoral, it is a sin, it is evil.”

He predicted that by 2010, there will be 50 million orphans in Africa as a consequence of war, famine, droughts, and preventable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.

At a March 2001 meeting of Anglican Primates, Ndungane was charged with moving the Anglican Communion forward by addressing issues of poverty, trade, debt and HIV/AIDS.

In his February 17 presentation, he set forth challenges of how Anglicans can respond “to make the world a better place for all … to ensure that there is sustainable livelihood for everyone so that every human being” has access to clean water, food, and healthcare.

He shared details about “Towards Effective Anglican Mission” (TEAM), a global conference on prophetic witness, social development and HIV/AIDS, set for March 7-14, in Boxburg, South Africa. The conference, Ndungane said, is “seeking to discover strategies of how Anglicans can contribute to make the world a better place for everyone,” through advocacy and commitment to the MDGs.

Williams has said that the TEAM conference “represents the best opportunity Anglicans will have in the coming year to put the extraordinary human resources of our Communion at the service of the most vulnerable in our world and our own local communities.”

Women’s Empowerment

Wangusa also spoke about the Anglican Women’s Empowerment, which is in its third cycle of participating in the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women (UNCSW), which will begin meeting in New York February 23.

In its 51st session this year, the UNCSW will focus on the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child.

In highlighting issues of trade injustice, Wangusa said: “Revisit the trade rules, revisit the trade practices and ensure that whatever we trade in provides benefits that are equitably distributed.”

Underscoring environmental concerns and issues of water and energy, Wangusa asked, “if water is more expensive than Coke, what shall the poor drink, because water used to be a global common good?”

“So it’s our role as Anglicans to revise that because it’s an anomaly — it deprives people of even the basics — and make sure that those entities then go back to producing that which maintains the dignity of life,” she said. “In short, the MDGs are a starting point for debate, for discussion, for analysis, but more than that for policy review and reversal so that everybody lives in a life that is dignified.”

Wangusa accepted the call to be the next Anglican Observer at the United Nations in October 2006 and officially took office on January 1, 2007. She serves as a staff member of the London Anglican Communion Office with her office based at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City, in close proximity to the United Nations.

In representing the Anglican Communion at the United Nations, Wangusa has a responsibility to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the secretary general of the Anglican Communion to provide regular briefings and a flow of accurate information on critical issues that come before the UN General Assembly.

In other business, Canon James Rosenthal, communications director for the Anglican Communion, said that the Primates had continued conversations about the Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report.

Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Australia was unable to attend the media briefing because he has been named a member of the Primates’ drafting committee that is charged with producing the communiqué.

On Sunday, February 18, the Primates will travel by boat to Zanzibar for a Solemn Eucharist in the Anglican Cathedral — where the altar is built over an old slave trading post — as the people of Zanzibar commemorate the 100th anniversary of the last slave sold on the island and the 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British Empire.

– Matthew Davies is international correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

[ENS] Seven “Global South” archbishops refused to receive Holy Communion with their fellow Primates February 16, alleging that they were “unable to come to the Holy Table with the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church because to do so would be a violation of Scriptural teaching and the traditional Anglican understanding.”

In a similar action, as many as 19 Primates refused to attend Holy Communion at their February 2005 meeting in Northern Ireland because of the presence of former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and Archbishop Andrew Hutchison of Canada, according to reports.

The recent decision came during the second day of the Primates’ Meeting near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and was published in a letter posted on the Nigerian Anglican Church’s website, despite the Primates agreeing February 15 that they would not disclose information about the meeting’s proceedings until its conclusion.

The Primates were Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, John Chew of Southeast Asia, Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Justice Akrofi of West Africa, Henry Orombi of Uganda, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, and Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda.

The full text of the statement MAY be available at

http://www.anglican-nig.org/GSPrimates_in_Tanzania.htm

At an evening media briefing, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Australia, the Primates’ spokesperson for the meeting, said that he was unaware of the public statement.

“The Primates discussed at the beginning of the meeting how they would handle relations with the media,” he said. “The fact that this appeared on the Nigerian website is news to me, but if it becomes an issue remains to be seen.”

Throughout the day, Akinola was seen moving between the Primates’ enclave and the area of the White Sands Hotel where the media are housed to join consultations with Bishop Martin Minns of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a conservative mission of the Nigerian Anglican Church.

The Primates absent from the Eucharist called their action “a consequence of the decision taken by our provinces to declare that our relationship with The Episcopal Church is either broken or severely impaired.”

Meanwhile, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori “has continued to honor the agreement with her fellow Primates not to discuss the proceedings of this meeting until its conclusion,” said Robert Williams, communication director of the Episcopal Church.

– Matthew Davies is international correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

[ENS] A proposed Anglican Covenant — intended to affirm those cooperative principles that bind the Anglican Communion — together with a report on the Listening Process, and further consideration about the Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report occupied the February 16 sessions of the Primates’ Meeting near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The day also included an afternoon courtesy call on President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania paid by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams.

At a media briefing closing the day, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Australia, spokesperson for the meeting, said the Primates “moved from the intense listening mode to much more discussion, exchange of views and debate. We heard free and frank views as well as areas of concern and tension that still need to be worked through.”

Aspinall said he hopes “to report further tomorrow as those discussions mature.”

The Primates also received the report from the design group that has been charged with developing an Anglican Covenant.

The Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council, the Communion’s main policy-making body, considered the report earlier in the week and informed the Primates that “it wishes to commend the work of the design group for further discussion in the Anglican Communion,” Aspinall said.

The Primates said that they wish to share the Covenant with the bishops of the Anglican Communion before its public release. Copies of the Covenant Design Group report and the draft Covenant are expected to be made available, along with the Primates’ communiqué, on February 19.

Aspinall said that they hoped for initial responses from around the Communion within the next 12 months and for a revised version of the Covenant to be presented to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops.

‘Statement of classical Anglicanism’

Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, who joined the media briefing, was appointed by Williams to serve as chair of the Covenant Design Group, which held its first meeting in Nassau, Bahamas, in mid-January.

“The overall purpose of the draft covenant is to provide the Anglican Communion with a mechanism of mutual accountability of holding one another together,” he said. “We believe that when it is finally approved we will have a means of holding each other in check and dealing with difficulties from time to time.”

He said that the draft proposal represented “a statement of classical Anglicanism,” but acknowledged that “it is not one size fits all.”

The Primates have requested that Williams write a letter commending the draft and the report to the 38 Anglican provinces for study and response, and noted an urgent need to translate the report into several different languages.

Another session was devoted to the consideration of a report from the Panel of Reference, which considers situations where congregations are in serious dispute with their bishop and unwilling to accept his or her episcopal ministry. Retired Archbishop Peter Carnley of Australia, chair of the Panel, delivered the report.

A number of difficulties were discussed about the Panel’s procedure: the effort required to establish the facts in a case where large volumes of written material are provided; constraints caused by the fact that legal actions are underway; and getting timely responses.

“Blunt questions were raised about whether the outcomes achieved are proportionate to the amount of work by the Panel,” Aspinall said. “While no definitive answer has yet been reached, it was pointed out that there has to be a will for reconciliation in these circumstances in order of the work of the panel to be effective.”

During the final session, the Primates heard from Canon Philip Groves who presented an interim report on the Listening Process, which strives to honor the process of mutual listening, particular to the experience of homosexual persons.

Groves has been making contacts around the communion and assessing what churches are doing to listen to gay and lesbian people, Aspinall said, acknowledging that there needs to be “established safe ground” for the process to be effective.

“He outlined preliminary proposals for the Lambeth Conference and is working on developing high quality materials that will deal with the experiences of homosexual people, what science can tell us about homosexuality,” the legal contexts, the reflection on the Bible, and training resources on facilitating listening.

Responding to questions from the media, Gomez insisted that the “difficulty of broken communion is more perceived than real,” and identified three groups of provinces in terms of responses to actions of the Episcopal Church.

“The first group of provinces has made no formal statement and that is probably the largest group,” he said. “The second is made up of provinces that have declared themselves to be in ‘impaired’ communion,” the group with which he identified his own province of the West Indies.”

The third group, he said, “has received the most attention in the last three years — the group that has declared it is in broken communion and it is those primates who have chosen not to attend Eucharist with the Presiding Bishop” of the Episcopal Church for the last two gatherings of the Primates. (Related story to follow.)

Meeting President, Remembering Martyr

In mid-afternoon, the Archbishop of Canterbury made a courtesy call on President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and paid tribute to the progress the country has made in recent years. The Rev. Jonathan Jennings, Williams’ press officer, quoted him as saying that “Tanzania has been a symbol of hope and stands for what can be achieved through democratic development.”

Williams was joined for the presidential meeting by Archbishop Donald Mtetemela of Tanzania, Bishop Alexander John Malik of Lahore, and Bishop Valentino Mokiwa of Dar es Salaam.

In other activities, Ugandan Archbishop Henry Orombi led a prayer service commemorating the anniversary of the death of Janani Luwum, African martyr and former Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, who was murdered in 1977 under dictator Idi Amin’s regime.

The Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, who escaped Amin’s rule in 1974, read two prayers. “Both were under the pastoral care of Janani Luwum,” Canon James Rosenthal, communications director of the Anglican Communion, told reporters. Jefferts Schori read a lesson as part of the commemoration.

On February 17, the Primates will continue discussions about the Episcopal Church and receive presentations on theological education and the proposal of a worldwide study of hermeneutics, the branch of theology that deals with biblical interpretation.

– Matthew Davies is international correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

[ENS] Intense listening, characterized by an expression of “patience, graciousness, care and respect” was the atmosphere in which the Primates gathered February 15, said Australia’s Archbishop Phillip Aspinall during a media briefing following the conclusion of their first ay of sessions.

“There has been no talk of schism in the meeting at all,” he said.

After considering a report from the Communion sub-group that was charged with monitoring the response of the Episcopal Church’s General Convention to the Windsor Report, the Primates — who saw the report for the first time today — concluded that a working group be established to document the day’s discussions and report back to them on the morning of February 16.

[Full report is online at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/25/acns4249.cfm]

In its report, the sub-group reached consensus that although the Episcopal Church did not use the precise language of the Windsor Report, which called for a “moratorium” on the election of gay bishops and consent to those votes, “it probably did the most that could have been done, and the response to that request is adequate,” said Aspinall, who was joined at the briefing by Archbishop John Chew of Southeast Asia.

The General Convention resolution, adopted in 2006, calls the Church to “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.”

Regarding public rites for the blessing of same-gender unions, the sub-group said it was not satisfied by General Convention’s response. “It is not convinced about the rationale of why General Convention did not act explicitly,” Aspinall said.

The Windsor Report also called on the Episcopal Church to express regret for the pain it had caused by its recent actions. “Again the General Convention didn’t use the precise language of the Windsor Report,” Aspinall said, but noted that the sub-group felt the response of the Episcopal Church had been sufficient.

The sub-group added that the issue of same-gender relationships “has been on the agenda of the Instruments of Communion of the Anglican Communion since 1978.”

The members of the sub-group were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams; Archbishop Bernard Malango of Central Africa; Archbishop Barry Morgan of Wales; Chancellor Philippa Amable from the Province of West Africa; Canon Elizabeth Paver of the Church of England; and the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion.

In addition to their morning Bible study, the Primates gathered at midday for a liturgy of “corporate penitence,” with a litany of prayer led by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Aspinall said the Primates welcomed three bishops who, along with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, each gave presentations about their perception and understanding of the situation in the Episcopal Church.

Invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the three were Bishop Christopher Epting, the Episcopal Church’s ecumenical and interfaith officer; Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network of Dioceses and Parishes; and Bishop Bruce MacPherson of Western Louisiana, chair of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice.

Aspinall announced that the three bishops, as well as all the Primates, had been asked not to comment on the meeting until after its conclusion February 19.

“Contrasting views and concerns were expressed about how the majority relates to those who hold minority views,” Aspinall said. “Each delegate explained the people they represented and their constituencies, and expressed frankly sand passionately the views of those they represent.”

The presentations were followed by an hour of discussion during which “the Primates were able to clarify what they thought and explore the way in which they might create a space for healing and reconciliation within the Episcopal Church,” said Aspinall. He noted that the three bishops and Jefferts Schori are looking to the Primates to assist the Episcopal Church in this process, but said it was understood that the real work would need to be done by the piscopal Church. Discussion of those specifics still remains on the Primates’ agenda.

It was recognized that “unwanted and uninvited intervention” from other parts of the Anglican Communion — such as the crossing of Provincial or diocesan boundaries, as criticized by the Windsor Report — has caused difficulties in the Episcopal Church.

In this regard, the sub-group expressed concern that “the other recommendations of the Windsor Report, addressed to other parts of the Communion, appear to have been ignored so far.”

Aspinall said that the Primates were reminded “to remember people in parishes and local clergy who are feeling pain and the sense in the church that enough is enough.”

“One Primate from another province spoke of his experience in dealing with conflict with Anglican bodies and the attempts at healing and noted the assistance that province was given by the instruments of communion,” Aspinall said, acknowledging that there is a sense of anticipation that the proposed Anglican Covenant will provide a vehicle for healing and reconciliation.

The Covenant was proposed by the Windsor Report in order to give explicit articulation and recognition to the principles of co-operation and interdependence which hold the Anglican Communion together.

Aspinall reiterated that it had been a day of “intense listening,” and that no decisions had yet been made. “The task is now to discern the response [the Primates] wish to make collectively to the report as well as to the Episcopal Church.”

Chew, one of the self-named ‘Global South’ Primates, underscored the importance of the Windsor Process. “What is in the Windsor Report is what is required of us,” he said.

Aspinall concluded the briefing with a message of hope “that the Primates will strengthen the Anglican Communion and the bonds of affection and assist the Anglican Church to move forward in mission. I hope that is a message of hope, not only for Anglicans here but throughout the Communion.”

When the Primates reconvene on February 16, they are expected to continue discussions about the Episcopal Church and its Windsor Report response, as well as receive presentations on the Panel of Reference — which considers situations where congregations are in serious dispute with their bishop and unwilling to accept his or her episcopal ministry — and the proposed Anglican Covenant.

Subsequent sessions will be devoted to an interim report on the Listening Process, a proposal for an in-depth study of the way Anglicans interpret the Bible, and discussions about the future of the Church in China and its relationship with the Anglican Communion. Discussion of Anglicans’ response to the Millennium Development Goals is scheduled for February 17.

– Matthew Davies is international correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.