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South America vows to continue intervention
Church of England Newspaper
12/1/2004
The Anglican Churches of South America have backed their Primate’s intervention into the American Episcopal Church civil war over homosexuality saying such interventions will continue so long as there is a need.
The recent General Synod of the Province of the Southern Cone gave “thanks” for the Windsor Report and endorsed its recommendations concerning the United States and Canada, but questioned the committee’s choice of language.
“It worries us that the report has not made a clearer call to repentance on the part of the provinces of the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada.”
It is the Episcopal Church “that have clearly taken decisions and practices against the Holy Scriptures, the apostolic tradition of two thousand years of ethical education of the Church, and against the clear voice of the Communion” the 35 members of Synod, representing the Anglican Churches of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay stated.
The “regret” urged by the Windsor Report for the actions taken by the Episcopal Church and the diocese of New Westminster was insufficient to restore the impaired communion between South and North America. Relations “could only be restored through repentance, and through pardon and love”.
The Primate of the Southern Cone, Archbishop Gregory Venables, who through Bishop Frank Lyon of Bolivia, has taken on the pastoral oversight of American Episcopal parishes in the diocese of Atlanta -- contrary to the wishes of the Bishop of Atlanta -- was re-elected Primate by the Synod and given a vote of confidence for his actions.
L The American Episcopal Church will be asked to withdraw from the Anglican Communion should it not heed the recommendations of the Windsor Report, Archbishop Drexel Gomez told his Provincial Synod.
While the week-long General Synod meeting addressed issues of local concern: the spate of hurricanes, funding for the Province, crime and social upheaval and the election of a new bishop for Belize, responses to the Windsor Report occupied centre stage. “We hope to resolve the serious situation created by sister churches in the US and Canada,” Archbishop Gomez, a member of the Lambeth Commission on Communion (LCC) said on Nov 12.
But if the two Churches “refuse to comply with the recommendations, more decisive action” including “ultimate withdrawal will have to be enforced”.
Blessings of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals to the ministry are “unbiblical and we are not prepared to support them” he said. The Church in the Caribbean must, however, “take our position within the Anglican world and decide how we are going to go forward together as a communion or whether we are going to be placed in a position where we have to part our ways.”
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