A spokesperson for the Anglican Consultative Council has reported to The Living Church on 19th April that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s forthcoming "panel of reference" will not have the power to oblige the bishops to grant delegated Episcopal pastoral oversight. It will instead instil into its recommendations that the moral authority of the Anglican Communion be carried forward.
The deputy general secretary, Rev Canon Gregory Cameron commented that the "necessary work proceeds apace for the constitution of and nominations to the panel."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams will manage the members and the bylaws and Cameron said that this will be announced at the "earliest opportunity."
Canon Cameron continued by saying that the panel of reference "would derive its authority from the requests contained in the primates’ statements of October 2003, which asked that any schemes of alternative pastoral oversight be developed in consultation with [Archbishop Williams], and February 2005, where such a panel was explicitly requested to supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches in order to protect the integrity and legitimate needs of groups in serious theological dispute with their diocesan bishop, or dioceses in dispute with their provinces."
Dr Williams was urged upon in the primates’ 24th February communiqué to create a mechanism with which situations of pastoral oversight can be addressed.
In the communiqué, the primates stated, "In order to protect the integrity and legitimate needs of groups in serious theological dispute with their diocesan bishop or dioceses in dispute with their provinces, the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint, as a matter of urgency, a panel of reference to supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches for such members in line with the recommendation in the primates’ statement of October 2003."
Reverend Cameron expressed that while "there could be no legal authority attached to the panel (unless any province were to legislate internally for that), the panel would carry a moral authority as an independent monitoring/arbitration group, which could provide an independent and unbiased assessment of any given situation or dispute referred to it.
"To ignore or contradict its findings would, therefore, be to invite the opprobrium of the Communion, and provide a fulcrum point for any future reactions across the Communion to any particular situation."
