...I have come to the sad realization that there is no desire within the ACC and the SCAC to follow through on the recommendations that have been taken by the other Instruments of Communion to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion and which are tearing its fabric apart. Moreover, the SCAC, formerly known as the join Standing Committee (JSC), has continually questioned the authority of the other Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference.

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A message from the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Anglican Communion Covenant

Final Covenant text can be seen here. Other related documents can be downloaded here

Latest Statement from the Joint Standing Comittee

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion….

Unfortunately, the Episcopal Church in America (TEC) and a few other churches were strongly opposing the idea of the Covenant especially section 4. Their excuse was that this section is new and has not been studied enough by the Provinces as the other sections have been. They have forgotten that this particular section of the Covenant is in fact the outcome of many deliberations and responses that came from dioceses as well as bishops who attended the Lambeth Conference in 2008. In addition to this, section 4 was already present in the commentary of the St. Andrews draft of the Covenant that was sent to the provinces after the Lambeth Conference. I personal believe that we will never have a perfect Covenant that could be accepted by all, even if we spend another 10 years working in it. TEC also described section 4 as “punitive.” In response to this, it was clarified that the Covenant gives guidance to the Provinces which are responsible for making their own decisions. The Covenant also does not require any changes in the constitutions of the Provinces. In addition to this, section 4 allows Provinces to make amendments to the Covenant after it is accepted. In fact, it is because that section 4 is not strong enough many conservatives described the Covenant as very weak and useless…

The Most Rev. Drexel Gomez said at a press conference that if GC2009 rescinds Resolution B033 and removes any barriers to persons involved in same-sex relationships, it will imperil the work of the Covenant (in its final draft) and will have an impact on the rest of the communion because of the responses others will need to make.

As it turned out, the ACC was granted a perceived power to order the Covenant’s actual content that it simply does not and should not hold. It is a consultative body whose purpose is to coordinate common mission and to advise: it is neither the guarantor nor the originator of Communion doctrine and polity. To be sure, even the proposed Covenant indicates that the ACC has authority to “initiate and commend a process of discernment and a direction for the Communion and its Churches” [3.1.4], a section the Council approved. But the larger context of this authority is one that takes acutely into account the common service of the Communion’s members. As I will point out below, such a common service has been potentially compromised in a significant way…

We have taken part in the whole process of discernment and decision-making at ACC-14. We wish to share with our own provinces and the wider Communion our observations and initial conclusions from the meeting…

There’s no absolute measure for achievement.  In critical times quite small things may be quite large achievements.  And so, if we reflect on what we’ve done in the last ten days, then it may be that even some apparently very routine things are real achievements.  We’ve got up every morning; and we’ve prayed every morning; we’ve read scripture together; we’ve affirmed our will to stay in relation; and we’ve done some planning.  We have sent forward work on the aid and development alliance, on theological education, on evangelism and church growth, on the Bible in the Church.  We’ve agreed on the follow-up to the work of the Windsor Continuation Group.  We’ve even agreed on the substance of the Covenant, including, and we should remember this, the timescale for that work… 

Archbishop Williams said that Anglican provinces are “a bit reluctant” to engage the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant in greater detail because it “does underline for us that the possibility of division is there, the possibility at least of certain kinds of division.” He said people have spoken of the future of the communion as a federation, “an association within which some groups are more strongly bound to one another and some groups less strongly bound.” He added, “I suspect that will be more inevitable if not all provinces do sign on to the covenant. And I hasten to add that’s not what I hope. It is what I think we have to reflect on as a real possibility.”

The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) will not endorse the Anglican Covenant, and has voted to send it back to committee for further review. The vote comes as a major defeat for the Archbishop of Canterbury who had championed the covenant as the one way to keep the Anglican Communion from splitting. However the defeat was self-inflicted, as Dr Rowan Williams’ ambiguous intervention in the closing moments of the debate led to the loss. Delegates adopted a compromise resolution, whose provisions Dr Williams had rejected at the start of the May 8 debate but backed by its end, to appoint a committee to review and revise section 4 of the covenant and report its recommendations to the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the ACC for adoption. A process, the ACC’s secretary general Canon Kenneth Kearon said would likely take up to year to bring to fruition.