On the other hand, it will be viewed as a "victory" for Western pan-Anglican liberal primates and their agenda for a more open, progressive, less doctrinaire, but more accommodating to a culture that embraces pansexuality.

For Dr. Williams, there will, at the very least, be no more diplomatic shuffling between orthodox and liberal primates with the hope of brokering a deal to keep everyone at the table. The vast majority of the orthodox simply won't be there.

There might be mild protests about the wholesale acceptance of a Listening Process that ignores the real intent of Resolution 1:10 from some of the primates from India and Pakistan and those African province heads that do show up. Most will be mindful of who paid their air tickets and accommodations. They will be strangely silent in the face of such strident voices as Jefferts Schori (US), Fred Hiltz (Canada), Thabo Magoba (Southern Africa), Barry Morgan (Wales) and Philip Aspinall (Australia).

Articulate calls for the full acceptance of gays and lesbians by Western liberals to all orders of ministry might be met with a cautionary note perhaps even a mild rebuke from Rowan Williams, but he will be outvoted. In the end, he will go along with the consensus, hoping (perhaps even praying) that some Hegelian synthesis might yet emerge from the depths of Anglican fudge to rescue him.

Kearon and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) will privately note with joy that checks will continue to flow from TEC to keep the spinning wheels of a now stalled Anglican bus in place. Like a shell company with no real assets, the ACC will continue on, churning out papers that few will read and the orthodox know has no real purpose for its existence.

In the self-fulfilling words of Rowan Williams uttered at the recent Church of England Synod, he warned of the risk of a "piece-by-piece dissolution" of worldwide Anglicanism. That will be all too evident in Dublin when the orthodox fail to appear. One "warring faction" will simply not be there to fight with the other. The dissolution will have taken place.

Williams told the synod it was an "illusion" to think the communion could "carry on as usual" without some changes. What changes can there be if the major players fail to show up?

For a dozen years or more, the orthodox have demanded and made clear that they will never accept homosexuality as good and right in the eyes of God. At the same time, the liberals have again and again sought to make it clear that homosexuals and their behavior should be acceptable in the Anglican Communion and that it is only narrow-minded fundamentalists and exclusionists in Africa and other places that has hindered full acceptance.

The Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have consistently sided with the orthodox Anglican Global South. Archbishop Jonah was at the founding of the Anglican Church of North America.

What, pray tell, does Rowan Williams think he can do now? What leverage does he have if the orthodox Primates are no shows?

What will really stick in his craw is if the Global South primates demand that ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan be accepted as a full primate making the total number 39. (Of course, that cannot happen because an application has to go through the ACC and we know full well that Kearon would nix it without a moment's hesitation. He has no wish to see Katharine Jefferts Schori disappear through the roof of 815 Second Avenue, NYC, NY, like an out of control rocket in her rage and anger should that even be a consideration.) No, that won't happen. In any event, Duncan is happily ensconced with the GAFCON Primates.

Williams, who has tried to keep disparate churches talking rather than leave the communion altogether, has articulated the hopelessness of taking up entrenched positions on homosexuality, criticizing both sides in the debate.

But that's his problem. For the orthodox Global South, there is only ONE position. It is the faithful recognition that Holy Scripture has spoken clearly and precisely about sex outside of heterosexual marriage. Holy Writ is against it, regardless of sexual orientation. Didn't the pope send the same message to Williams?

Aides say he has been depressed by the battle. Why is anyone surprised? Lesser men would have resigned a long time ago. Dr. Williams keeps thinking that a covenant, now being resoundingly rejected by liberals from half a dozen Anglican provinces will bring about unity. Most of the orthodox provinces, however, no longer believe it will hold the communion together. The truth is it won't. It can't. Section IV is a slap in the face (or backside) to liberal provinces like the US and Canada. That is a humiliation they will never accept. Pansexuality is their sword to fall on.

What Global South archbishops have signed on to is the Jerusalem Declaration and they are united behind it. Dr. Williams is not apparently ready to recognize that. He is still hoping that the rabbit in the hat is the Covenant.

CANA Bishop Martyn Minns of the Anglican Church in North America believes that the fundamental fatal flaw in the Covenant is that trust is gone. "Decisions and documents that have been worked on in the past have not been honored."

As one primate observed, "Look, why do we keep going? All the decisions have been made. The documents we signed have never been honored. There's no point."

Furthermore, any notion of a two-tier communion is not on the table. That has been the fiction of the liberals who vainly believe that comprehensiveness can embrace contradictory positions. As Minns noted, "I think the structure is shifting and moving frankly from a colonial structure to a much more global structure. It will be far more of a network than a hierarchical structure."

The orthodox Global South Primates have also made it clear that the See of Canterbury will still be around long after its present incumbent has gone. A new archbishop might well reflect the views of a George Carey or Donald Coggan than a Michael Ramsey, or a William Temple rather than a Robert Runcie or, better still, a St. Augustine (598) over against a Rowan Williams.

END