Bishops waver as Lambeth beckons

|PIC1|With the once-in-a-decade Lambeth Conference just days away, hundreds of bishops are planning to stay away whilst others remain in two minds after this week's vote in support of women bishops.

Church of England officials said that 230 of the 880 bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion, mostly from the Global South, have decided not to attend the conference, according to The Telegraph.

That figure includes the Bishops of Rochester, Lewes and Willesden, and bishops from the Global South provinces of Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya.

The attendance of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, meanwhile, hangs in the air after he condemned the General Synod vote to confirm women bishops.

Writing in the Catholic Herald this week, Bishop Burnham said, "What we must humbly ask for now is for magnanimous gestures from our Catholic friends, especially from the Holy Father, who well understands our longing for unity, and from the hierarchy of England and Wales.

"Most of all we ask for ways that allow us to bring our folk with us."

Synod threw out proposals on Monday night for the creation of a separate diocese and "super bishops" to oversee objectors of women bishops.

Bishop Burnham said the lack of compromise measures rendered the claims of the Church of England to be One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic "shaky or simply untenable", and dismissed codes of practice as "shifting sands".

The Archbishop of Kenya, the Most Rev Benjamin Nzimbi, meanwhile confirmed in a statement on Thursday that the Kenyan Church would not attend Lambeth in protest of pro-gay bishops present at the conference.

"We won't attend the forthcoming Lambeth though we have not broken away from the Communion," he said.

Bishops in the UK, meanwhile, have complained of a lack of preparation in the days running up to Lambeth.

Although the conference is due to open on Wednesday, the Bishop of Europe, the Rt Rev Geoffrey Rowell, said he was "astonished" at the lack of information handed out so far on the details of the Lambeth programme, according to The Telegraph.

"We know the themes for each day and that we shall be in study groups of eight, but not much else," he said.

His concerns were echoed by the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, who said he was "very surprised" at receiving little more than a "sketchy outline" of events.

"I've never been to a conference before where we have had such little information," he told the newspaper.