A Report From the Anglican Covenant Conference

Susan Russell is in New York attending the Anglican Covenant Conference. Here's part of her report of the first session, which included a presentation by Archbishop Drexel Gomez:

...In a nutshell, the Archbishop made the case that "the present crisis" makes it essential that we "articulate the bonds of affection and make explicit what has heretofore been implicit" in order to create "agreed upon mechanisms for managing differences."
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In a nutshell, the room wasn't buying it. Although +Gomez maintained that an Anglican Covenant was "not intended to calcify the Communion but to enable it to deal with disputes" he also asserted that "the covenant is the only available mechanism to hold the Communion together" -- at the same time referring with some energy to "the present crisis" which has "broken the communion" and "could have been avoided" if there had been a recognition of "the legitimate limits on autonomy."
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The only real surprise for me was his reference to "Rumors of a bold initiative to advance 'gay marriage'" ... surprising because there's no "rumor" about it -- at least not to anybody who reads this blog...

You will find some background information on the proposed Anglican Covenant here.

Check back at An Inch at a Time for further reports during the next few days.

J.

UPDATE: There is now an additional report from this conference, provided by Jered Weber-Johnson on the Daily Episcopalian. Here is part of it:

...In perhaps the most pointed comment of the evening, Leonel Abaroa Boloña, a student at Trinity College, Toronto, stated that Archbishop Gomez had preached at the consecration of two bishops whose consecration was expressly for the purpose of pastoral care to Anglicans in America disaffected by the Episcopal Church’s stand toward homosexuality. Boloña argued that Gomez’s presence at the consecration, which took place in Kenya, seemed to be inconsistent with the stance of the Windsor Report and the Anglican Covenant, both of which Gomez played a part in producing and is expressly supportive of.

“I need consistency”, said Boloña, “and as the Primate of the West Indies and as a person who says he supports the Windsor Report, you are saying one thing and doing another.”

Gomez responded that his presence at the consecration was not as Primate, but as close friend of the two men being consecrated. He denied that his actions were in any way inconsistent with his words...