The Anglican Covenant arrives on schedule
The Archbishop of Canterbury had referred in May 2009 to delivering a completed Anglican Communion Covenant by mid-December.
Yet the document's arrival on Dec. 18, complete with a concise video commentary by Archbishop Rowan Williams, was a global news story. It stirred a new round of denunciations by liberals who considered it too heavy-handed and by conservatives who considered it too lenient.
Its release reinforced that the Anglican Communion is a worldwide body that now conducts its theological dialogue not only in synods and conventions but also through global media. In his commentary, Archbishop Williams characterized the next steps of the Covenant's reception as careful and deliberate, stretching over the next few years.
"It's not going to solve all our problems, it's not going to be a constitution, and it's certainly not going to be a penal code for punishing people who don't comply," he said. "It does try and sort out how we will discern the nature of our disagreement. How important is it? How divisive does it have to be? Is it a Communion-breaking issue that's in question, or is it something we can learn to live with?"
The Covenant took more than three years to take shape. In May 2006, the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) asked Archbishop Williams to appoint a design group for the document. After three public drafts, and a contentious ACC meeting in May 2009 that asked for revisions to the Covenant's fourth section, the document is now ready for provinces to discuss and to adopt or not adopt.
Even before the Covenant's final text was complete, the Global South Anglican Primates Steering Committee announced that the Fourth Anglican Global South to South Encounter will discuss it, and likely affirm it, on April 19-23 in Singapore.
"We aim to affirm the Anglican Covenant as the basis in intensifying the ecclesial life between churches in the Communion, and explore ways churches should stand firm side by side in one spirit and with one mind for the faith of the Gospel of Lord Jesus Christ," the committee said in a statement.
Only a few hours before the Covenant's release, what is now called the Anglican Communion's Standing Committee said that it strongly reaffirmed "the three moratoria proposed by the Windsor Report and the associated request for gracious restraint in respect of actions that endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion by going against the declared view of the Instruments of Communion."
The Standing Committee couched its resolution as a direct response to the election of the Rev'd Canon Mary Glasspool, an openly partnered lesbian, as a suffragan bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
Two leaders of the Episcopal Church - Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the Rev'd Dr. Ian Douglas, bishop-elect of the Diocese of Connecticut - are elected members of the Standing Committee.
The Standing Committee cited Resolution 14.09, approved by the 14th meeting of the ACC in May 2009, as it reaffirmed the Windsor Report's three moratoria (on further consecrations of openly gay or lesbian bishops; on public rites for blessing same-sex couples; and on boundary-crossing actions by Anglican bishops or provinces).
Section 4.2.5 of the Covenant says that the Standing Committee "may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion relational consequences which may specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from, that Instrument" until a dispute resolution is completed.
The full and complete text of the Covenant is available online at tinyurl.com/AnglicanCovenant.