Conger

In his final address before retirement to the House of Bishops and Standing Committee of the Church of the Province of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez urged the Church to reawaken to the power of God’s love.

The dry and distant Anglicanism of many parts of the West Indies, must make way for a “more caring and compassionate” church, he told the West Indian bishops and the congregation of St. Mary’s Anglican Church in Bridgetown, Barbados on April 17.

“We must face up to the challenge to see where we stand in love,” Archbishop Gomez said, and “must devise more strategies to assist members in their engagement with God and to foster a deeper commitment” that would transform the believer and society.

The rampant individualism and selfishness of Western culture was the greatest single threat to the faith. Believers must surrender their lives to God and be faithful to his will for their lives, rather than pursue their own moral, political or social agendas.

The Church faces “the challenge of discernment and commitment” as it entered the Twenty-first century, he said, urging the bishops to hold fast to the faith once delivered, and not succumb to the siren song of culture.

The senior serving Primate of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Gomez was elected Bishop of Barbados in 1972 and was translated to the Diocese of Nassau and the Bahamas in 1995, and elected Archbishop and Primate of the West Indies in 1999. He will retire at the end of this year.

The Bishop of Barbados, the Rt. Rev. John Holder praised Archbishop Gomez for his constancy and faithfulness. He had been at the “heart of the fight” in the Anglican Communion’s battles over doctrine and discipline and had offered “outstanding leadership as the church wrestled and searched for a way forward.”

Archbishop Gomez’s labours amidst a “difficult, contentious and painful” fight to hold the church together had ensured that future generations “could call themselves Anglicans.”

Published in The Church of England Newspaper

The Church in Barbados has cautioned the country’s opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) against splitting into factions following its defeat in the General Elections.

In a founder’s day service for the BLP held at St. Mary’s Church in Bridgetown on March 30, the Rev. Von Watson charged the party to holdfast. “Unity is very essential for the present and the future,” he said according to local press accounts. “There will be the need for common mind and purpose in even the days of differences of opinions.”

On Jan 15 the BLP was turned out of office, returning only 10 members to the 33 seat House of Assembly—losing 14 seats to the opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP) which returned 20 members.

In the wake of the defeat of the “oldest political party in Barbados, there has to be a cohesion” Fr. Watson said. “There can be no room for separation and certainly no room for division.”

Party leader Mia Mottley (pictured) told the congregation the BLP would return to its political roots and must “put people first.” The opposition would focus on the environment, housing, the economy and the “fight against poverty. “

The “key battles that we will continue to fight,” she said would be to prevent the “gap between ‘the haves’ and ‘the have-nots’ from widening” in Barbados as it had “in so many developed countries.”

“At this present time, you are in the office called the Official Opposition and biblically speaking you are therefore the watchman. You are to blow the trumpet when necessary and give warning when needed,” Fr. Watson said.

“For when the time of reckoning comes, you, my friend, will be judged on how you kept watch, what you did or did not do with the trumpet, or whether you warned or did not warn the house of Barbados,” he said.

Bishop Reid blessing the colours of the Jamaica Regiment

Anglicans cannot continue to act as if it were the church established by law and rely upon the government to take the lead in fostering morality the Bishop of Jamaica, the Rt. Rev and Hon. Alfred Reid told the diocese’s 138th meeting on March 25.

Dr. Reid told the diocese the church was living in “different days” yet acted as if it still enjoyed the patronage of the Crown. “Even now that the Church has lost its power, we don’t feel that we have the ability to persuade people not to gamble, we are depending on the government to legislate. We don’t feel we have the power to preserve life, the government must legislate against abortion.”

The establishment mindset had robbed the church of its missionary zeal, he argued, and had muted its voice in addressing social inequality, crime and corruption. By acting as the “Church of yore” rather than the Church of today, the Church in Jamaica had given over the mantle of social witness to the state—-and the state, he argued, had not been able to fulfill this role. The Church of England in Jamaica was formally disestablished in 1870.

“We must now go back to the real power that was given to the Church, which is the power of God and not secular power” Dr. Reid told the 303 delegates to the synod meeting in Trelawny.

Synod also commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Church Army in Jamaica, lauding its missionary and educational achievements and support for the spread of the Gospel in the West Indies.

The Most Rev. Drexel Wellington Gomez, Primate of the Church of the Province of the West Indies and Archbishop of Nassau and the Bahamas

Photo taken May 15, 2007 in Orlando, Florida. 

The Archbishop of the West Indies has urged the evangelical wing of the conservative Global South coalition of provinces not to boycott the Lambeth Conference.In an interview broadcast March 12 on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Archbishop Drexel Gomez urged evangelicals to reconsider their position. “I prefer to be at the table where the discussion is taking place than to view it in absentia,” he said, “and the future of Anglicanism - to a large extent - will be determined by the outcome of Lambeth.”

His remarks came the same week as the Diocese of Sydney reaffirmed its decision to boycott the conference, with the Dean of Sydney arguing that the reputation of any bishop who went to Lambeth “knowing that unrepentant homosexual activity is wrong’ would ‘always be tarnished.”

Archbishop Gomez told ABC the Lambeth Conference was the sole vehicle for coming to a “communion-wide consensus” on the issues dividing the church. “If a significant number of bishops stay away from it, then a consensus would be impossible.”

There remained a “need for us to meet together to try and forge a way forward,” he said.

Archbishop Gomez stated that he and Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen were united in their opposition to the innovations in doctrine and discipline taken by the American and Canadian churches on the question of homosexuality. However, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals were divided on how to address the challenge.

On March 14, the Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen called upon all orthodox Anglican bishops to boycott Lambeth. “I would urge those bishops who believe that unrepentant active homosexuality is wrong not to compromise their own beliefs, the scriptures, the church of God and the holiness of Christ” and accept the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation.

To go to Lambeth and be present with those bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire is to have “fellowship with false teachers in their wicked work. It cannot help but diminish faithful Christians’ confidence in you as a leader. To believe otherwise is a further illustration of the naivety, which leads you to attend,” he said.

The goal of the American bishops is to overturn the 1998 statement on homosexuality, he said. “They came last time for the final debate and they lost. They come this time with an action that they refuse to repent of. The American bishops did not listen last time they will not listen this time,” he said.

Dean Jensen’s speech was one of four delivered at a briefing held at St. Andrew’s Cathedral Chapter House in Sydney on March 14. Joining the dean were the President of the Anglican Church League, Dr. Mark Thompson, Australia’s former ACC representative Robert Tong, and diocesan spokesman Russell Powell.

Both Archbishop Gomez and the diocese of Sydney deprecated claims that the June GAFCON conference would be an alternative to Lambeth. GAFCON was designed to be “a means for strengthening the conservative view within the communion,” Archbishop Gomez said. Those attending would “come away refreshed and reinforced in their convictions, but it does not mean that that would be the end of the Anglican Communion.”

Sydney’s Russell Powell told the audience at the Sydney Cathedral GAFCON was not envisioned as an alternative to Lambeth, but a gathering whereby traditionalists could find a common way forward to focus on the future of mission throughout the Anglican Communion.

(Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, Hamilton, Bermuda)

A Bermudan government minister has called upon the Church of England to pay reparations in atonement for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The Minister for Culture and Social Rehabilitation Mr. Dale Butler MP released a statement on March 1 “inviting the Church to do more to show the religious community and the people of Bermuda that it is committed to help heal the wounds of racial divide in Bermuda.”

Butler’s Progressive Labour Party (PLP) won a third term in the Dec 18 general elections against the conservative United Bermuda Party (UBP). The racially charged campaign was marked by accusations of corruption and calls for group solidarity.

The UBP-which had governed the British dependency since self-rule was granted in 1968—was ousted from power in 1998 by the PLP which promised a “new Bermuda.” The PLP promised to empower blacks who comprise about 60 percent of Bermuda’s 62,000 people saying they continued to face discrimination and enacted laws mandating racial preferences in the workplace.

Following the Church of England’s 2006 apology for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Premier Ewart Brown called upon the Diocese of Bermuda to issue its own apology. Whilst he applauded the diocese’s subsequent statement of remorse, Butler-a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church—called upon the Church of England to back up its words with cash and endow a scholarship programme for black Bermudians.

“The Minister believes, that while investment in the future of Black youth in Bermuda could never adequately compensate for the injustices done to past victims of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Bermuda, a strengthened and long-lasting gesture on the part of the Anglican Church would contribute to healing a race that remains scarred by injustices that have not found acceptable resolution in Bermuda,” a statement released by Butler’s office said.

“The legacy of a scholarship could help heal this country that continues to be divided by race,” the PLP minister said.

The Bishop of Bermuda, the Rt. Rev. Ewan Rattray declined to comment, saying he was studying the request.

The Bishop of Trinidad has issued a call for the moral regeneration of the Caribbean island nation, which is in the midst of a gang and drugs fueled crime wave.

Gang violence had spawned an “enormous wave of terror” that had swept “across the landscape” Bishop Calvin Bess told the congregation of Port of Spain’s Holy Trinity Cathedral on Feb 17.  However the rise in youth crime was not only a failure of policing, but a collapse of the moral order.  “If life has no meaning” for criminals, “how can death have any meaning?” the bishop asked.

Trinidad and Tobago has seen an upsurge in crime over the past decade.  In 2000 the police service recorded 120 murders–a figure that had risen to 388 by the end of 2007.  Nine murders were committed on Jan 1.

Last month the government pledged a renewed effort to tackle the violence.  National Security Minister Martin Joseph told Parliament that British police were being sent to the twin-island nation to train the constabulary, and Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the government “would win the fight” against crime through the acquisition of sophisticated electronics hardware that would establish a “security blanket” around the nation.

However, opposition leaders and the media have urged a more vigorous response.  The “most critical issue facing the nation is gang violence,” the Sunday Guardian said on Jan 13, as many lived “in fear for their lives with no confidence in the capacity of police officers to bring any relief to the level of crime that is now a part of their way of life.”

“We have wept enough, suffered enough, far too many lives have been snuffed out.  I appeal to the youth of this land who are caught up in this culture of death to come out of the darkness,” Bishop Bess said.  “Your strength, your energy can be put to much better use.”

Improved policing was but part of the solution.  The Christian transformation of society was necessary so that those who had taken to a life of crime could be redeemed and reformed before they struck, the bishop said.

The Jamaica Tourist Board has announced plans to make the Caribbean island nation a religious tourism destination.

At a meeting with church leaders on Jan 28, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett unveiled a building programme that includes a 5000-seat convention centre to attract religious groups to the island.

Religious travel and tourism was one of the fastest growing segments of the holiday industry Bartlett said, and was an untapped market for the island.

Of America’s 450,000 churches, over 50,000 ran church travel programmes he said. Church youth, missionary and fellowship groups were the most frequent flyers.

“The destinations range from Israel, which has the highest incidence of tourism travel, to the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and others. Missionary work is a big area of travel in the religious fraternity, with Africa and India being the largest recipient countries,” he said.

Youth groups usually visited countries where they could participate in charitable community based projects—which would be an added benefit for the Jamaican economy, he said.

Faith-based travel and tourism sector will require larger convention centre facilities, the minister said, noting the island did not lack for infrastructure, but “we do lack space.”

The Anglican Church in Jamaica has applauded the drive to attract religious groups to the island and pledged its cooperation to the initiative. The 2009 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council is already scheduled for Montego Bay and may be one of the first beneficiaries of Jamaica’s expanded tourist infrastructure.

Church and government leaders in Guyana have called for calm following the murders of 11 people in the coastal village of Lusigan in the early morning hours of Jan 27.

The killings have provoked a crisis for the government of President Bharrat Jagdeo (pictured) and may heighten the already difficult relations between the country’s Black and Indian communities.

After creating a diversion by shooting up a police station, a large well-armed criminal gang selected the homes of five Indo-Guyanese families and slaughtered eleven people, including five children, wounding three others.

Calls by panicked neighbors to the police went unanswered during the 20 minute rampage. When police arrived an hour and a half after the shooting had stopped, they told the survivors they had delayed coming from fear of an ambush.

The police declined to speculate on the motive of the killers, who were identified as an Afro-Guyanese criminal gang. However, local newspapers reported the killings were designed to foster fear and to establish the gang’s control over the local community.

The Anglican Church in Guyana denounced the Lusignan murders as a “barbaric deed.” Bishop Randolph George noted the “outrage and bewilderment” left in the wake of the killings. However, he urged restraint and called for a re-commitment from all the members of the community towards building a new Guyana.

Racial tensions between the Indian community and the African community have plagued Guyana since independence from Britain. Emigration has taken its toll on the country as many middle class and educated Guyanese have left the country for Britain, the US or Canada—giving New York City a larger Guyanese population than Guyana.

Church and government critics note the Lusignan murders could mark a “tipping point” between what is seen as a corrupt and ineffective government and well-armed and confident criminal gangs.

In a joint statement issued with the US, Canadian and EU ambassadors, British High Commissioner Fraser Wheeler called for calm. Communal violence and retribution would not provide justice for the dead, and would undermine the country’s recent strides towards development.

The High Commissioner stated that body armour and other resources were on their way from Britain, and trainers to aid the police were to be in Guyana next month.

“As friends of Guyana,” the ambassadorial statement said, they remained “steadfast in their support and were optimistic that the atrocity was a challenge Guyana will overcome.”

The Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago has affirmed the government’s right to reinstitute the death penalty in that Caribbean country, but has urged it to consider other means of deterring crime.”

Life imprisonment is an option,” the Rt. Rev. Calvin Bess said, as “one of the major Christian pillars is the redemption of man.” No one was “beyond redemption” he argued, and “we cannot lose hope.”

Last week the Prime Minister of Trinidad Patrick Manning said the government would reintroduce hanging for those convicted of murder and treason. Trinidad and Tobago’s last execution was in 1999 when nine men were hanged for murder.

Of the 78 prisoners on death row, 15 have exhausted their appeal rights and can be executed. However, the government has commuted the death sentences of a number of prisoners in response to a 1994 Privy Council decision that set a five-year limit for execution from the time sentence was imposed.

In the case of Pratt & Morgan v. Jamaica, the Privy Council also ruled that the mandatory application of the death penalty was an abuse of law. However, an appeal by the governments of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago led the Privy Council to reverse itself and permit mandatory death sentences.

Bishop Bess said the Church in the West Indies had not taken a formal position on the death penalty. The Church’s debates focused on fighting crime, rather than debating the morality of capital punishment, he told a Port of Spain newspaper.

Bishop Bess noted the Church’s formularies as well as Scripture gave a warrant for the state to execute criminals, he said, noting “I would have to argue that what I see in the New Testament suggests capital punishment is” permissible.

“When Jesus hung on his cross, there were two people executed with him, one on each side. And one of them realised his erring ways and asked for forgiveness. He was pardoned by Jesus of the crimes he had done but he was not spared the penalty,” he said.

The former principal of the Church of England’s first theological institute focused on Black Anglican concerns, the Rt. Rev. Sehon Goodridge, has died in a Barbados Hospital on Dec 28 at the age of 70.

Bishop Goodridge was the first principal of Simon the Cyrene Theological Institute in Wandsworth, a pre-theological training institute for ordinands and lay workers specially designed to serve Black Anglicans in the UK.

Inaugurated by Archbishop Robert Runcie at a memorial service at St. Anne’s Church in Wandsworth in April 1990, the institute provided placements and pastoral studies units for white and black ordinands and was an initiative of the Black Clergy Association.

Dr. Goodridge, who had served as principal of Codrington College—the Church of the Province of the West Indies primary clergy training college, led the school from 1990 until his election as Bishop of the Windward Islands in 1994.

He was also a warden and a counselor of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus. Bishop Goodridge is survived by his wife and three children.

Strengthening the family in the face of social change will reverse the social decay facing much of the Caribbean, the West Indies said at its General Synod last week. The rise in crime, broken families and a wounded and perverse view of sexuality were moral problems that needed to be addressed by a reaffirmation of right doctrine and Biblical truths, delegates to the Nov 24-29 meeting at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Antigua (pictured) said.

The sixty delegates from the eight Caribbean dioceses stretching from Belize to Guyana affirmed the church’s traditional teachings on marriage and human sexuality, backing the 1998 Lambeth Resolution on human sexuality, and pledged to continue working towards the creation of an Anglican Communion Covenant.

Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu has concluded his West Indian tour with a six day visit to Barbados, visiting seminarians at Codrington College and commemorating the 170^th anniversary of one of the island’s colonial parishes.

Dr. Sentamu was greeted upon arrival in Bridgetown by Bishop Wilfred Wood, the retired Bishop of Croydon and the Bishop of Barbados, Dr. John Holder. The Church of England’s first non-white domestic bishop, Bishop Wood had ordained Dr. Sentamu to the priesthood and has been a friend of some 27 years.

Bishop Wood told a Barbadian newspaper the Archbishop of York’s visit held great emotional meaning for West Indians. “We thank God for this privilege of being allowed to touch this hem of the garment of history,” he said.

In an Oct 14 service at St. Thomas parish attended by clergy and lay leaders from across the diocese, Dr. Sentamu urged the church to pursue social activism as a mark of their Christian faith. “Worship has to do with what we give” he said, warning against being Christians with “deep pockets but short arms.”

Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies. May 22, 2007. 

Indecision and delay in responding to the crisis of faith and order over homosexuality will likely wreck the Anglican Communion, the Primate of the West Indies told his diocesan synod last week.

On Oct 22 Archbishop Drexel Gomez told the 107^th session of the Diocese of the Bahamas synod gathered at Christ Church Cathedral in Nassau that reform was needed now to save the Communion.

“It is clear that the future of the Anglican Communion is unclear at the moment but there can be no doubt that the future shape of Anglicanism will have to undergo significant adjustments if the Communion is to remain intact,” he said.

The adoption of an Anglican Covenant would go a long way towards restoring trust and accountability within the Communion, he said. However, the crisis of gay bishops and blessings could not be papered over without dire consequences to the integrity of the Church as the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 “changed everything,” he explained.

Archbishop Gomez also said the Communion must also resolve the issue of bishops acting outside their territories and the plight of embattled traditionalists in US and Canadian dioceses and restore catholic order to the church.

Chairman of the Anglican Covenant Design Group, Archbishop Gomez is considered one of the key international players whose support Dr. Williams’ needs to keep the Communion going. The West Indian primate is not likely to lend his support to the ACC’s attempt to rehabilitate the Episcopal Church, however.

Speaking to The Christian Challenge magazine, Archbishop Gomez said the ACC’s joint standing committee report of Sept that gave the US church a passing grade in complying with the primates’ requests was “was more generous than I feel they should be.”

The Global South coalition of primates is expected to issue a statement this coming week that endorses the position of the African provinces, which held that the New Orleans statement failed to adequately respond to the requests made of the American Church by the wider Anglican Communion.

Dr. Sentamu and the Governor General of Jamaica, Kenneth Hall at King’s House in Kingston, Oct 8. (Diocese of Jamaica photo)

Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu has offered an apology to the people of Jamaica for the Church of England’s complicity in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“Whether I like it or not, I belong to the church which participated in the transatlantic slave trade,” Dr. Sentamu said during a ceremony Saturday at the University of the West Indies in Mona where he was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree.

“The actions of my forebears are my actions,” he said. “I can’t distance myself from the terrible things that the Anglican Church did to my brothers and sisters who were sold as slaves. And for that I deeply apologise.”

“In a free society, we need to remember that all are involved in the actions which some are doing; some are guilty, but all are responsible,” the Archbishop of York said on Oct 6.

Preaching at the National Arena on Sunday before a capacity crowd, Dr. Sentamu urged the congregation to pursue authenticity. “God rejoices in the fact that he created each one of you … That is the greatest message of the sermon this morning, be yourself and don’t try and be somebody else.”

Dr. Sentamu also urged the congregation to pursue humility. “When I became the bishop of Birmingham I reminded everybody else, when you see me as the bishop and looking so gorgeously dressed just remember the day Jesus entered Jerusalem, he rode on a donkey.”

The crowd in Jerusalem “dressed up that donkey to take Jesus to downtown Jerusalem”, he added. “So when you see me dressed up like a bishop in very funny clothes, I am simply a donkey taking my Jesus to downtown Birmingham.”

Bishops, he said, were “mere donkeys” whose ministry was to take “Jesus in places where there is no love where there is no hope where there is no justice.”

Dr. Sentamu is in Kingston as a guest of the Diocese of Jamaica and will spend a week on the island before traveling to Barbados. On Monday he met with Governor General Kenneth Hall and then with Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, discussing issues of regional and international concern.

THE ARCHBISHOP of York, Dr John Sentamu has been invited to Jamaica to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Dr Sentamu will be a guest of the Diocese of Jamaica and the nation from Oct 5-12 and will be awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of the West Indies on Oct 6 at a Special Convocation at the Assembly Hall at the University’s Mona Campus, the diocese reports.

Past recipients of honorary degrees at a Special Convocation at the UWI include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Colin Powell, Harry Belafonte and Kofi Annan.

The Primate of the West Indies has urged the members of the Anglican Churches of the Caribbean to take constructive steps to bring more young people into the life and work of the church. Speaking to a Barbados newspaper, Archbishop Drexel Gomez said the Anglican Church must be prepared to come up with funding, training, and leadership opportunities to equip the church’s next generation of leaders.

The church must raise up more youth leaders, he told the Nation, “persons who will be given the necessary expertise to plan and to lead projects in which there would be outreach to young people.”

“In the past we have left too much to chance. We need to spend some money to equip people properly to do this,” he said, adding that the Diocese of Nassau and the Bahamas had recently sent two of its youth workers to Britain to train.

Congregations must also create space for young people, he said, as in many parishes “older persons tend to call the shots and determine everything that happens,” he said.

He said the Church should strive for “inter-age collaboration” and adopt a “holistic” model of decision making that involves the young.

Young people are now included as full participants in the deliberations of General Synod, he noted. “They must be part of it, not necessarily in charge, but be part of the decision-making,” Archbishop Gomez said.

“The church as the body of Christ means that every member is important,” he said. “It is the interconnectedness of the body that must be translated into the way the church lives and functions,” the West Indian archbishop concluded.

The Church of the Province of the West Indies has drawn upon reggae artists Bob Marley and Peter Tosh for inclusion in its new hymnal.

Speaking to the Jamaica Observer on Aug 1, Canon Ernle Gordon of Kingston said Tosh’s reggae version of Psalm 27 and Bob Marley “One Love” would be included in a hymnal scheduled for publication later this year.

The inclusion of the two reggae songs in the hymnal was part of the Church’s move to make it culturally relevant. However, some congregations had been having reggae, calypso and mento (a precursor of ska and reggae popular in the 1950’s) for over 25 years, Canon Gordon said.

“I don’t live in England; I live here, so my theology and how I think must reflect my cultural morals. The theology has to be Caribbean-oriented. You have to interpret the Bible according to where you are,” he told the Observer.

The Anglican Church was careful that its reggae gospel music was used “correct theology and that they are catholic in theology,” he said, making “certain that the words relate to the Bible and to our own Anglican interpretation of it.”

The Province permits the use of a number of hymnals and different dioceses favor different books. The most widely used hymnal in the predominantly Anglo-Catholic West Indies, however, is Hymns Ancient and Modern.

The Anglican Communion is headed “straight for the rocks” if its member churches do not change course and adopt a concordat laying out the parameters of a common faith and order, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies, told the Diocese of Central Florida on May 15.

Meeting with the clergy and lay members of the diocesan board and standing committee at Canterbury Retreat and Conference Center in Oviedo, Archbishop Gomez offered a somber analysis of the tensions between The Episcopal Church and parts of the 38-member Anglican Communion while leading a day-long discussion of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

Read it all in the Central Florida Episcopalian.

Comment on this story at Global South Anglican.

Bishop John W. Howe of Central Florida and Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, Canterbury Conference Center, Oviedo FL May 15, 2007. This photo first appeared in The Church of England Newspaper on May 25, 2007 with the story:

Episcopal Church Mishandled the Debate on Human Sexuality: CEN 5.25.07 p. 7.