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Day One (Tuesday June 13, 2006)
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by the Rev. Caroline "Caro" Hall, St. Benedict’s,
Los Osos, visitor to General Convention
(In-depth coverage of the Episcopal Church's 75th
General Convention, meeting in Columbus, Ohio,
from June 13-21, will be provided by the Episcopal
News Service and can be accessed online at
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/gc2006news.)
The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. John Tucker Mugabi
Sentamu, Archbishop of York, and one of the more
than 60 overseas visitors here in Columbus,
addressed the Convention today, first reading a
message from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged the amount
of international attention that this Convention is
receiving and assured deputies and bishops of the
prayers of the English House of Bishops. The
Archbishop commended the work of our Commissions
and Committees in responding to the Windsor Report
and extolled its theology, stating that ‘We cannot
survive as a Communion of churches without some
common convictions about what it is to live and to
make decisions as the Body of Christ.’
The Special Committee charged with preparing the
resolutions that respond to the Windsor Report
started its open hearings today. In the early
afternoon the underlying philosophy of the Windsor
Report was addressed by fourteen different
speakers in a packed hall. Don Reid, delegate from
South Ohio, made a useful distinction between the
communion to which we are called and the actuality
which we live. He argued that so-called
‘communion-breaking action’ should not in fact be
communion-breaking as we attempt to ‘live into’
the communion we are called to be.
How to ‘live into’ the vision of communion was the
main topic of conversation as various speakers
addressed the idea of inviting members of other
Anglican Communion churches to sit (with voice but
not vote) on our Standing Commissions. This had
been proposed as a tangible way of ‘going the
extra mile’ to demonstrate our willingness to be
interdependent. Several speakers questioned the
usefulness of this and pointed out that we do not
know whether members of other churches would wish
to do this, nor how it would be financed.
In the evening the subject of money arose again as
the Committee heard from ACC member Josephine
Hicks who spoke of the importance of the Episcopal
Church continuing to pay its full share to the
Inter-Anglican budget and thus to avoid any
perception of arrogance or unilateralism. The
decision to withdraw from the Nottingham ACC
meeting was made in a spirit of generosity and to
withhold any portion of our payment would, she
argued, send the wrong message.
While several speakers addressed the relationship
between interdependence and communion, none
suggested that we should not continue as a
constituent member of the Anglican Communion.
Tomorrow the Special Committee will deal with some
of the nitty-gritty resolutions concerning the
requested moratoria on the election of openly LGBT
bishops and on same-sex blessings. As so often
happens, bringing the vision into reality may
prove difficult.
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