The Chairman of the ACC Apologizes to US and Canadian Churches

The Bishop of Auckland speaks to the Episcopal Church's Executive Council about Nottingham, the Windsor Report, and the need for a new 'theology of inclusion'

John Paterson, bishop of Auckland and chair of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), told the Executive Council that he hopes General Convention will rigorously debate the Windsor Report.

"The Anglican Communion needs the Episcopal Church," he said. "I would be so bold as to say that the reverse is also true. The Episcopal Church needs the Anglican Communion. The ACC needs the Episcopal Church."

Paterson, speaking to the Council's opening session March 6, also apologized for the ACC's decision to limit the participation of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada's delegations to the last ACC meeting in Nottingham. Noting that the vote to ask the churches to voluntarily withdraw their members passed by two votes, Paterson said the decision "ostracized" the delegations.

"I was saddened personally by what took place at ACC13 in Nottingham," Paterson said. "I chaired the session at which a vote was taken to endorse the Primates' request that `in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the ACC, for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference.' Your representatives were not permitted to speak or to vote on that resolution. It was carried by two votes.

"The effect of it was to ostracise the American and Canadian representatives, who were forced to live apart and walk apart. I apologise and at the same time I commend your representatives for the manner in which they managed somehow to stay with the body which was treating them so badly. There was a dignity in their bearing in the midst of their sadness and the Episcopal Church can be quietly proud of your people. NevertheFYI less, it happened on my watch, and this is my personal apology."

Speaking of the ACC, Paterson added, "A body which exists by means of a constitution agreed to by all the member churches of the Anglican Communion, and that is required by that constitution to be `consultative' cannot consult fully or properly if all of its members are not sitting at the same table. It is surely not for one Instrument of Unity to disempower another?

"My next word is one of commendation. Along with a number of others in the Communion, I take the view that the Episcopal Church thus far has been exemplary in the attention that you have given to the recommendations of The Windsor Report. Of course you have your General Convention soon, and that body will make up its own mind about these matters. The process of reception is moving along and, at considerable cost to your own ministry and mission, the Episcopal Church has acted carefully and well. I hope that the call in The Windsor Report for all Provinces to exercise generosity and charity as the process gathers pace does not go unheeded. Those qualities are yet to be shown by some.

"Despite its partial exclusion from participation in the structures of the ACC, the Episcopal Church has demonstrated a quality of leadership in relation to Windsor that I have greatly admired. The paradox is that in the midst of our apparent disunity the Episcopal Church has an opportunity to be a living symbol of Anglican unity. You have within your ranks a wide cross-section of Episcopalians. Labels are notoriously unhelpful, but they help to identify the rich diversity of Anglicanism. Many in the Communion are holding out the hope that the Episcopal Church's ultimate response to Windsor will be an inclusive one, a response which both liberal and traditionalist might be able to own.

"Last June in Nottingham I sat and listened with growing appreciation to the two presentations made by representatives of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church. Both groups had gone to great lengths to prepare detailed presentations, within a limited time frame, and they were sensitive, inclusive and courteous. Both of those presentations are important contributions to what we have now called `the listening process' as mandated by Lambeth Resolution, the Primates Meeting, and the ACC."

Paterson also called for caution in the listening process, noting the "very different" views of the Roman Catholic church and the Muslim world."Not that we are to be dictated to by the views and values of others," he said, "but if a wider consensus is ever to be reached on these matters, then a sensitivity to others and a respect for difference is going to be essential. And those are Anglican virtues are they not?"

He also called for a new theology, a theology of inclusion: "I suspect that a study of the history of the Episcopal Church might discover much evidence of a respect for, encounter with, and an inclusion of, a number of issues. This church was way out in front in respect of the ministry of women. What is now evident is that there is a need for a theology of inclusion, whereby those who may differ from others theologically and perhaps in their ecclesiology, are still able to remain in the same room."

Paterson ended by asking for a vigorous discussion of the Windsor Report. "For all its imperfections, The Windsor Report is the document before the Communion, with suggestions for a way ahead," he said. "I hope the General Convention debates it rigorously, and then generously shares its conclusions with the Churches of the Communion.

"The Anglican Communion needs the Episcopal Church. I would also be so bold as to say that the reverse is also true. The Episcopal Church needs the Anglican Communion. The ACC needs the Episcopal Church. I used to take some pride in stating that the ACC is the most representative body in the Anglican Communion. That suffered a body blow from the Primates Meeting in Ireland and from ACC 13. But let me conclude with what I said in Nottingham:"

"Let ACC-13 declare to our watching and rather anxious church that our Communion is indeed a living Communion, that God lives, that God loves, and that we can continue to worship and serve God from our many different perspectives, while still proudly calling ourselves 'Anglicans'.