Episcopal Church’s Executive Council declines to participate in Primates' 'pastoral scheme'

NEW YORK, Estados Unidos, June 14, 2007

The Episcopal Church's Executive Council told the Anglican Communion June 14 that no governing body Taxi Heathrow Airport other than General Convention can interpret Convention resolutions or agree to deny "future decisions by dioceses or General Convention."

The Council declined to participate in a plan put forward by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in February for dealing with some disaffected Episcopal Church dioceses.

The statement agreed with the House of Bishops, which said in March that the so-called Pastoral Scheme "would be injurious to The Episcopal Church." An accompanying resolution (EC012) also "respectfully requests the Presiding Bishop to decline as well." The statement itself "respectfully ask[s] our Presiding Bishop not to take any of the actions asked of her by this scheme."

The action came June 14 on the last day of a four-day meeting at the Sheraton hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey.

The statement, and three resolutions, form a response to portions of the communiqué issued by the Anglican Primates at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The communiqué contained the Pastoral Scheme and called for the Episcopal Church "to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges."

At the 75th General Convention in June 2006, in Columbus, Ohio, bishops and deputies agreed in Resolution B033 on the last day to "call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."

The communiqué also called for an end to "public rites" for blessing of same-gender relationships.

The General Convention has never authorized a liturgy for blessing same-gender relationships. In 2003, the Convention recognized, in Resolution C051, that "local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same-sex unions." This has meant that some diocesan bishops have allowed priests to bless such unions as a pastoral response to members of their congregations.

The Council acknowledged the communiqué as "a good-faith contribution" to the on-going discussion about Anglican identity and authority, but said that the "requests of the Primates are of a nature that can only be responded to by our General Convention." The Convention next meets in the summer of 2009.

The Council's statement "question[ed] the authority of the Primates to impose deadlines and demands upon any of the churches of the Anglican Communion."

"Assertions of authority met by counter-assertions of polity are not likely to lead to the reconciliation we seek," the statement said. "Our salvation is not in the law but in the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Savior; so too with our relationships as Anglicans."

Source: Episcopal News Service

https://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86884_ENG_HTM.htm