ABC Gives Oversight Proposal "Cautious Welcome"

Episcopal News Service
December 1, 2006

Archbishop of Canterbury responds to oversight proposal

Other church leaders join in voicing views

[ENS] The Archbishop of Canterbury said December 1 that he gives "a cautious welcome to proposals outlined by the Episcopal Church in the United States to offer alternative forms of oversight to dissenting parishes and dioceses."

Dr. Rowan Williams' statement came a day after a group of bishops, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, announced that it had developed a proposal responding to "An Appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury" addressing what other petitioning bishops and dioceses have termed "alternative primatial oversight" or "alternative primatial relationship."

Full texts of the group's response and accompanying statement are available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_80010_ENG_HTM.htm.

The complete text of Williams' statement follows and is also available at
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm?years=2006&months
=12&article=763&pos=

"The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has given a cautious welcome to proposals outlined by the Episcopal Church in the United States to offer alternative forms of oversight to dissenting parishes and dioceses. Dr Williams said that the proposals would contribute to the process of determining future relationships.

"The meeting in New York to consider the questions raised by requests for 'alternative primatial oversight' has produced some imaginative proposals which represent, potentially, a very significant development.

"I am glad to see these positive suggestions and shall be giving them careful consideration. I hope that they will mark a step forward in the long and difficult process of working out future relationships within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion in a manner faithful to the gospel requirements of forebearance and generosity."

In other responses, Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan issued a November 30 statement in his role as moderator of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDP)(http://www.acn-us.org/) saying that the proposal appears to fall short of his organization's wishes. Member dioceses of NACDP include those who asked Williams for a relationship with a primate other than Jefferts Schori. The full text of Duncan's statement is available here
(http://www.acn-us.org/archive/2006/11/episcopal-church-response-falls-s
hort.html).

Also on November 30, the Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity (http://www.integrityusa.org/), a group which advocates for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the Episcopal Church, commended the proposal as "protecting the polity of The Episcopal Church while offering a pastoral response to those who hold a minority theological opinion." The full text of Russell's statement is available here
(http://www.integrityusa.org/press/2006-11-30.htm).