Agenda Released for Anglican Consultative Council Meeting in England

The 13th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting will be held at the University of Nottingham, England from 18-28 June. The ten-day conference, where bishops, priests and lay people from all 38 Anglican Provinces across the world gather, is expected to highlight the ongoing controversy over homosexuality in the Church. Details of the meeting were disclosed in a letter from the ACC yesterday.

It was announced that the plenary sessions of the Nottingham meeting will be open for press and media, including the presentations by the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) on the actions the Churches have taken in the area of same-sex blessings.

The presentations are scheduled for 21-22 June at the request of the Primates' Meeting in Dromantine, Ireland, last February. In fact, both Churches were recommended by the Windsor Report to voluntarily withdraw their members from the ACC for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference.

The unique presence of the two Churches this time enables them to set out the thinking behind the recent actions of their Provinces to consecrate openly homosexual bishops and authorising same-sex blessings, in accordance with paragraph 141 of the Windsor Report, Canon Kenneth Kearon Secretary General of the ACC said.

In addition, he mentioned that the presentation is also part of the ACC’s response to the request of the Windsor Report "to take positive steps to initiate the listening and study process which has been the subject of resolutions not only at the Lambeth Conference in 1998, but in earlier Conferences as well".

Many other important issues are covered on the agenda. Apart from ecumenical matters, reports from Commissions of the Communion and various Anglican Communion Networks, a revised Constitution, proposals in the Windsor Report in relation to the ACC, the Millennium Development Goals, and a report from the Anglican Observer at the United Nations, will also be considered.

The ACC meeting is hosted by the local diocese under the leadership of Revd Canon Andrew Deuchar. Each day will start with a Bible Study led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is also a pattern of worship throughout the Council Meeting.

The ACC meets every two or three years in different parts of the world to maintain frequent and representative contact among the Churches in between the once-a-decade massive conference of bishops - The Lambeth Conference. The ACC has a permanent secretariat based in London.