The fourth annual council meeting of the Anglican Communion Network began July 30 with a somber address in which the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Network, stressed that reforming The Episcopal Church is a lost cause. Later, during a question-and-answer session, he criticized the Archbishop of Canterbury for not intervening more forcefully.
“The American province is lost and something will have to replace it,” said Bishop Duncan, who has served as the Network’s elected moderator for three and a half years.
That message also took a visual form as Bishop Duncan showed portions of a video. The video, backed by discordant piano music, depicted The Episcopal Church as a large blue circle. Several smaller blue circles, labeled Common Cause Partnership, emerged from the large circle. The Episcopal Church’s circle faded, and the Common Cause circles formed into one new and equally large circle.
Bishop Duncan expressed his disappointment that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not supported Network members in ways that he and other Network leaders had hoped.
“Never, ever has he spoken publicly in defense of the orthodox in the United States,” Bishop Duncan said of the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, adding that “the cost is his office.
“To lose that historic office is a cost of such magnitude that God must be doing a new thing,” he said.
A reporter for The Living Church asked Bishop Duncan to expand on his remarks about the cost of the archbishop’s office. “I was actually expanding on a remark that the Archbishop of Sydney made during a breakfast I had with him two weeks ago,” Bishop Duncan said, explaining that both the See of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference have been lost as instruments of communion.
“The fact is that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not led in a way that might have saved his office and might have saved Lambeth,” Bishop Duncan said.
He cited the willingness of presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt to go further than the law allowed during times of national crisis.
“In this crisis, we’ve had no leader to lead,” he said. Asked if he thought that being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury was essential to being Anglican, Bishop Duncan said that being obedient to scripture is of greater importance than being recognized by Canterbury.
Bishop Duncan was asked earlier in the day whether he would be willing to stand again for nomination as moderator of the Network. He said he was willing to stand for nomination again unless the council refused to ratify the theological statement and articles of the Common Cause Partnership.
After Bishop Duncan’s address, delegates to the council discussed a theological statement in support of the Common Cause Partnership, which they ratified. They also began discussing articles of incorporation for Common Cause Partnership. At the request of the Rt. Rev. James Stanton, Bishop of Dallas, the council delayed a ratification vote on the articles until voting on any proposed revisions to the Network’s charter.
Bishop Stanton stressed that Common Cause’s articles would commit the Network to actions that violate the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church. On Tuesday, the council is scheduled to discuss a proposal to delete from its charter a reference to operating within the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.
Douglas LeBlanc