Covenant blow from Episcopalians: CEN 10.23.09 p 6.

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church has unanimously endorsed a report that rejects the proposed disciplinary provisions of section IV of the Anglican Covenant. The Council also offered an oblique criticism of dioceses that have endorsed the Covenant, saying such moves were unhelpful and premature.

On Oct 8, the Executive Council released its official response to the Ridley Cambridge Draft of the Covenant, following a survey of the church’s General Convention deputies. The “majority of [diocesan] deputations and individual deputies” were “not convinced” that the “covenant in its current form will bring about deeper communion.”

The idea of a covenant was “un-Anglican” for some American Episcopalians while one unnamed deputy said the “document incorporates anxiety.”

A “majority of respondents do not support the fourth section of the draft covenant,” the report said, with one diocesan deputation arguing the disciplinary provisions of the covenant created a “system of governance contrary to our understanding of Anglicanism and establishes a punitive system executed by a select committee.”

The report criticized “some in the Episcopal Church and beyond who want to prejudge the General Convention’s decision on the Anglican Communion covenant. We find such predictions and pronouncements premature and unhelpful.”

Asked by The Church of England Newspaper who these unhelpful Episcopalians were and why their actions were unhelpful, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she did not know. “I did not write the response. It was written by the committee that gave the report,” she said.

“The reality is that the General Convention has not acted as yet to adopt a covenant because text is not final,” the presiding bishop noted.

Not all of the comments received were negative however as one diocesan deputation argued that “a governance section is needed to maintain a covenant.”

At its May meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council endorsed the first three sections of the Ridley Cambridge draft: I) “Our Inheritance in Faith”; II) The Life We Share with Others: Our Anglican Vocation”; III) “Our Unity and Common Life,”, but asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams to empower a committee to review criticisms of section IV) “Our Covenanted Life Together,” which creates a dispute resolution mechanism for the communion.

On May 28, Dr. Williams appointed Archbishop John Neill of Dublin, Archbishop John Chew of Singapore, Eileen Scully of the Anglican Church of Canada, and Bishop Gregory Cameron of St. Asaph in the Church in Wales to review section IV.

The working group will meet Nov 20-21 in London and give their recommendations to the Joint ACC-Primates Standing Committee meeting Dec 15-18.