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[Back to index of November articles] Eames advocates an Anglican Covenant By Jim Naughton Archbishop Robin Eames, Primate of Ireland and chairman of the commission that produced the Windsor Report, visited the Washington area last month, bringing both comfort and challenge to the Episcopal Church. In two lectures at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Eames praised the church's response to the recommendations of the Windsor Report, but also advocated the adoption of an Anglican Communion charter that would restrict the autonomy of member churches as a means of avoiding future controversies. The Windsor Report, released last October, called upon the Episcopal Church to express "regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached" in the election and consecration of V. Gene Robinson, a gay man who lives with his partner, as bishop of New Hampshire. It also recommended that the church affect a moratorium on the election and consecration of other gay bishops and on the promulgation of "public rites" for blessing same-sex relationships. The commission also recommended that the Diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia withdraw its authorization for a rite for same-sex blessings. At its meeting in March, the U.S. House of Bishops offered its "sincerest apology and repentance" for having breached the bonds of affection that sustain the Anglican Communion. It declared a moratorium on the authorization of public rites for same-sex blessings and decided to postpone consent on any episcopal election until the General Convention in June. "In terms of exact wording of the Windsor Report so far as the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are concerned - so far, so good, but much remains," Eames said. He acknowledged that given its governing structure, the Episcopal Church could not officially accept the recommendations of the report until its General Convention in June, and that acceptance was not a foregone conclusion. The archbishop also sought to reassure Episcopalians that their church is still a full member of the Anglican Communion. "Let me put it plainly," he said. "This is not a struggle between two North American provinces and other provinces. It is not a struggle between 36 provinces and two on how to 'discipline' the 'wayward'. Rather it is a struggle to discern how to meet conservative concerns for proper biblical interpretation and liberal consensus for justice and inclusion for minorities who claim they face prejudice and discrimination." Eames' assessment is contrary to that of some primates in Africa and Asia, who have said that if the American churches do not reverse their actions they must be expelled, or the communion will crumble. In an open letter to Eames on Oct. 16, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria said he was "astonished" by Eames' statements. "While I am grateful that 'regret' has been expressed and a temporary moratorium on episcopal consecrations has been established, same-sex blessings continue to be authorized in some dioceses in both provinces," he wrote. "And we all know that this is no more than a brief cessation of provocative actions and that no permanent change of mind is intended." In the second of his speeches, Eames suggested that Anglican teaching on same sex relationships remained open to discussion, despite a resolution passed at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 declaring that homosexual relationships were "incompatible" with Scripture. The authors of the Windsor Report "recognized there was genuine disagreement on the sexuality issue across our Communion and that that disagreement could not be settled easily one way or another," he said. "I have to say as chair of the Commission that those members who held the liberal view could not have been expected to sign the Windsor Report if they had felt the report's conclusions meant that the debate on the church's attitude to human sexuality was closed." In like manner, he said, "if the Anglican Communion is to remain united there can be no blanket condemnation of an ongoing process of discernment about the right way, under God and in the spirit of the Gospel, to accommodate the reality of faithful Christians who happen to be homosexually orientated within the life of the Communion. To do otherwise is to court schism." Eames' presentations were united by an emphasis on returning the recommendations of the Windsor Report to the center of the debate over Anglican unity - a position he said had been usurped by the actions of individual provinces which had broken communion with other provinces, or claimed ecclesial authority in other provinces. In that context, he emphasized the need for an Anglican Covenant that would articulate "essentials" agreed upon by all provinces in the Communion. The covenant concept has been received coolly in many parts of the Communion, including North America, where liberals fear it would lead to the creation of an Anglican curia, disenfranchise the laity and impede efforts toward full inclusion of women and minorities in the life of the church. "I submit that the covenant proposal in Windsor is not the revolutionary document some commentators have described it to be," Eames said. "As Prof. Norman Doe of Cardiff University has put it: "For the most part it [the Covenant] is a restatement of classical Anglicanism. Generally, of the 85 separate provisions, contained in the 27 articles, 59 are derived from existing Anglican texts and 26 are 'new' formulations, but themselves either adapted from existing ecumenical documents ... or based on the recommendations of the Lambeth Commission." Without a covenant, Eames said, the key questions that have arisen during the controversy over gay rights will remain unanswered: “Are there essentials on which there must be universal acceptance if provinces are to be in complete communion? Are there issues which diversity protects, on which there can be disagreements, but which are not essential to full communion? If there are to be different levels of essentials or non-essentials in this sense - who decides into which category any action by an individual church should fall?" Eames said he was "convinced" that the Anglican Communion would eventually adopt a covenant. "I believe this will happen not necessarily because it will be an end in itself," he said, "but simply because we can no longer live with the danger of major crisis such as at present." [Back to index of November articles]
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