Ugandan archbishop calls for action from Canterbury: The Church of England Newspaper, April 16, 2010 p 1.

Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Primate of the Church of Uganda has given the Archbishop of Canterbury a vote of no confidence in his management of the American crisis that stands ready to fracture the Anglican Communion.

On April 9, Archbishop Henry Orombi wrote to Dr. Rowan Williams voicing his objections to the structural changes implemented by Dr. Williams that have marginalized the primates and the bishops of the Anglican Communion in favor of the London-based Anglican Consultative Council and its staff.

He urged Dr. Williams to convene an emergency primates meeting to address the divisions within the Communion. However at this meeting he asked that the agenda be distributed before hand, and the US and Canadian primates—whose churches would be the subject of discussion—not be invited.

Within minutes of the announcement the US church’s 2003 General Convention had affirmed the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, Dr. Williams faxed a letter to the then US Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and the primates, calling an emergency meeting at Lambeth Palace to discuss the Robinson consecration. While Dr. Williams has warned the US church would face “consequences” for violating the Communion’s call for “restraint” on electing a second “gay” bishop, no action has thus far materialized.

Nor has Dr. Williams’ warning perturbed the US church. In response to a question from The Church of England Newspaper at the close of last month’s House of Bishops’ meeting in Texas, a spokesman for the bishops said there had been no discussion of the consequences of the Glasspool election. It was “not on the agenda” and did not “come-up” in discussion, Bishop Kenneth Price told CEN.

“We cannot carry on with business as usual until order is brought out of this chaos,” Archbishop Orombi said.

A spokesman for Lambeth Palace told CEN that Dr. Williams was “out of the office” when the letter was received, and as of our going to press no formal response had been made. However, Archbishop Orombi’s concerns will not come as a surprise to Dr. Williams, as the Ugandan archbishop raised them in private correspondence and conversation with Dr. Williams, as well as in a letter to the Times, published during the 2008 Lambeth Conference—which the Ugandan bishops boycotted, as did a majority of African bishops, due to the presence of the US bishops.

In his letter, Archbishop Orombi commended the President Bishop of the Middle East and Jerusalem’s decision to quit the Joint Standing Committee. The Ugandan leader said he stood in solidarity with Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt “in his courageous decision,” noting that many primates were in a “state of resignation as we see how the Communion is moving away further and further into darkness.”

He stated that he was perturbed by the “shift in the balance of powers among the Instruments of Communion” that had taken place under Dr. Williams’ watch.

It had been the primates who commissioned and received the Windsor Report, and it was the primates who presented the “appropriate ‘hermeneutic’ through which to read the Windsor Report. That “hermeneutic,” however, has been obscured by the leadership at St. Andrew’s House who somehow created something we never envisioned called the ‘Windsor Process’,” he said.

The Windsor Report was not a “process” but a “report” which contained “specific and clear requests” of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. However, in the aftermath of the 2007 Primates Meeting, the primates found they had been cut out of the “very process they had begun.”

“The process was mysteriously transferred to the Anglican Consultative Council and, more particularly, to the Joint Standing Committee,” Archbishop Orombi said. The Joint Standing Committee had this past year evolved into the “Standing Committee” which by year’s end had taken to calling itself the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.

This was an illegitimate usurpation of authority, Archbishop Orombi said, as there is no Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion. Such an entity had “never been approved in its present form by the Primates Meeting or the Lambeth Conference. Rather, it was adopted by itself, with your approval and the approval of the ACC.”

This rogue entity had been given “enhanced responsibility” and the Primates “diminished responsibility” over the life of the Communion, he said, adding that he could not lend legitimacy to an entity “that has taken upon itself authority it has not been given,” and in his capacity as the African representative to the primates standing committee, would boycott the meetings of the new standing committee.

The way forward was clear, Archbishop Orombi said. “There is an urgent need for a meeting of the Primates to continue sorting out the crisis that is before us, especially given the upcoming consecration of a Lesbian as Bishop in America. The Primates Meeting is the only Instrument that has been given authority to act, and it can act if you will call us together” he said.