Perilous Times
Archbishop" Anglican church will be dissolved 'piece by
piece'
Rowan Williams tells warring factions to pull together for crucial
General Synod vote on church's future
* Stephen Bates and Riazat Butt
*
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 November 2010 21.18 GMT
Rowan Williams speaking at the General Synod. Rowan Williams speaking
at the General Synod. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Dr Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, warned of the risk of
"piece-by-piece dissolution" of worldwide Anglicanism in a heartfelt
personal plea today to warring factions in the Church of England.
At the opening of the church's general synod in London, he called for
all parties to put aside their disputes and agree on a fresh framework
for settling differences across the 70 million-strong international
communion.
The synod votes tomorrow on the Anglican covenant, which has been seven
years in the making, and sets the Church of England at a crucial
crossroads. The church is already facing probable defections to Roman
Catholicism by some priests opposed to the ordination of women bishops.
The covenant was devised in response to divisions caused by the US
Episcopal Church's decision to endorse the election of the openly-gay
bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, and it has to be endorsed by
all 38 previously autonomous provinces of the communion across the
world. The vote will be crucial as not only is the Church of England
the mother church of the communion, but Williams is its spiritual head.
A senior church official told the Guardian: "There is no Plan B. If
this falls, the communion is in ruins."
In advance of the vote – which is technically to refer the covenant to
dioceses for consultation – supporters and opponents have indulged in
heated rhetoric; liberal Anglicans claimed it would spell the end of
individual churches' autonomy and subject decisions of the Church of
England to the prior approval of reactionary churches such as the
homophobic conservatives of equatorial Africa. Gregory Cameron, the
Bishop of St Asaph in Wales, the canon lawyer mainly responsible for
drawing up the covenant, likened opponents to the BNP.
Williams used his presidential address to the first day of the general
synod to urge both sides to calm down, listen to each other and work
through their differences.
"For God's sake," he said. "Don't let us waste time and energy talking
or behaving as if there were competition going on here ... I don't
think we are doing the job for which God has called us here if we
reproduce the worst aspects of secular partisanship."
He told the synod it was an "illusion" to think the communion could
"carry on as usual" without some changes. And it was a "greater
illusion" to think the Church of England could "derail the entire
process" of the adoption of the covenant, a text that opponents claim
will define who belongs and discipline those who flout rules.
"The unpalatable fact is that certain decisions in any province affect
all," he said. "If we ignore this, we ignore what is already a real
danger, the piece-by-piece dissolution of the communion and the
emergence of structures in which relation to the Church of England and
the See of Canterbury are likely not to figure very significantly."
Williams, who has tried to keep disparate churches talking rather than
leave the communion altogether, articulated the hopelessness of taking
up entrenched positions on homosexuality, criticising both sides in the
debate.
Aides say he has been depressed by the battle. He said: "It is
unthinkingly treated by some as almost the sole test of biblical
fidelity or doctrinal orthodoxy. It is unthinkingly regarded by others
as one of those matters on which the church must be brought into line
with what our culture can make sense of ... The covenant proposals are
the only sign at the moment of the work that has to be done."
Anglican provinces would only belong to the communion if they signed up
to the covenant, he said. They would agree not to proceed with any
development that fellow members anywhere in the world objected to.
The archbishop acknowledged that he was "bound to accept" his share of
"reproach" for the lack of progress in major debates and invited the
synod to help him do better by creating an "ambience where better
understanding may happen".
Earlier, the supreme governor of the Church of England, the Queen,
addressed the synod, reflecting on the "difficult, painful choices"
ahead.