Anglican Communion Names “Listening Process” Facilitator

A new facilitator for the “Listening Process” in the Anglican Communion has been appointed by Communion Secretary General, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon.

|TOP|The Rev. Canon Philip Groves was announced earlier in the week as the new incumbent of the post, described by the 1998 Lambeth Conference as “a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion”.

In a letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion Canon Kearon said, "I am pleased that this Listening Process, which has been requested on many occasions, can now begin in earnest. Canon Groves has wide experience and excellent gifts to take this process forward. I am sure he will wish to contact each of you shortly."

The move follows a request by the Primates Meeting at Dromantine, Ireland, in February last year, asking the “Anglican Consultative Council in June 2005 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”.

Canon Groves is currently Team Vicar in Melton Mowbray, Trustee of the Church Mission Society, a Council Member at St John’s College, Nottingham, and Canon of All Saints Cathedral, Mpwapwa, Tanzania.

The father of three will take up the post as facilitator full-time on 1st January 2006 as part of the Anglican Communion Office in Westbourne Park, London.

|QUOTE|Elsewhere in the Anglican Communion, last week leaders of the Global South gathered in Egypt. They issued a powerful condemnation of their more liberal counterparts.

The Church leaders, representing approximately two-thirds of the worldwide Church, revealed their unity in their determination to force the expulsion of the USA and Canada branches of the Church if they continued to refuse to reverse their liberal policies on homosexuality.

The latest twist in the Communion’s dilemma came after a five-day meeting in Egypt, where leaders made clear that they were commencing the formation of alternative structured in case a partial of full schism takes place.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, spiritual leader to the worldwide Communion, who has also been highly criticised over the past year for his lenient stance on the matter, had flown to the gathering at the end of last week seeking calm.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has told Anglican Church leaders from the Global South that the only ground for unity in the Church “'is to be found in Christ”.

On the Windsor Report, he said that it was too early to come to a judgement as to whether or not the reactions of the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada satisfied the terms of the report.

Dr Williams reported, “I don't think we could say that they have satisfied in a simple and direct way what Windsor asked because that process is still continuing and will continue. Archbishop Eames gave an optimistic reading of this; I'm waiting to see.”

The Church of England head said that he was happy to recognise them as part of the Anglican Communion, “There is no doubt in my mind that these networks are full members of the Anglican Communion; that is to say that their bishops, their clergy and their people are involved with the Communion which I share with them, which we all share with them. Now formal ecclesial recognition of a network, as if it were a province, is not so simply in my hands or the hands of any individual. But I do want to say quite simply yes of course; these are part of our Anglican fellowship and I welcome that.”

However, Dr Williams’ comments seem to have done little to have calmed the tensions that have become so apparent and public in the Communion. Leaders are still demanding that the ECUSA reverse their decision to consecrate Gene Robinson as the first Anglican gay bishop at the General Convention which will take place in 2006.

In addition, the leaders have been unshaking in their demands that the Canada Church immediately drop its endorsement of same-sex blessings at the equivalent General Synod the following year.