New call for lesbian bishop to be blocked: CEN 12.18.09 p 6.

A communiqué released at the close of the first meeting of the newly constituted Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (UFO) has backed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s call for the Episcopal Church to reject the election of a partnered lesbian priest as suffragan bishop of Los Angeles.

On Dec 8 the commission said it was their “fervent hope that ‘gracious restraint’ would be exercised by the Episcopal Church” and the election of Canon Mary Glasspool be rejected.

Meeting in Canterbury from Dec 1-8 the commission set out five “immediate tasks.”

To reflect on the “Instruments of Communion”; to define what an Anglican Church might be; to promote the Anglican Covenant; to study the ‘reception’ process for innovations in the life and witness of the church; and to look at how local ecumenical agreements affected the wider communion.

The brain child of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the UFO commission builds upon the previous work of Inter-Anglican committees on ecumenical relations and doctrine and the Windsor Continuation Group.

Critics have charged the commission has come rather late in the game to have any meaningful affect on preserving the communion.

The formal communiqué also makes reference to the “Anglican Communion Office” and the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” two legally non-existent bodies. Under Archbishop George Carey, attempts by the staff of the Anglican Consultative Council to operate under the name of the “Anglican Communion Office” were discouraged.

Under Archbishop Rowan Williams the ACC staff have taken on the working name of “Anglican Communion Office”, but as the review of the finances of Lambeth 2008 noted, this was not its legal identity, but a nickname.

The communiqué’s statement that the new commission will report to a hitherto unknown body called the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” refers to the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council a staffer said.

The chairman of the commission is the Primate of Burundi, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi, and its members include: Bishop Georges Titre Ande of the Congo, Prof. Dapo Asaju of Nigeria, Canon Paul Avis of England, Bishop Philip Baji of Tanzania, Canon John Gibaut of Canada, Bishop Howard Gregory of the West Indies, Dr. Katherine Grieb of the Episcopal Church, Canon Clement Janda of the Sudan, the Rev. Sarah Rowland Jones of Southern Africa, Dr. Edison Muhindo Kalengyo of Uganda, Bishop Victoria Matthews of New Zealand, Canon Charlotte Methuen of England, Dr Simon Oliver of England, Bishop Stephen Pickard of Australia, Dr Andrew Pierce of Ireland, Canon Michael Poon of South East Asia, Dr Jeremiah Guen Seok Yang of Korea, Bishop Tito Zavala of Chile and members of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s staff.