CONSERVATIVE Anglican leaders have challenged the authority of the Primates’ Meeting in Rome last week, arguing that it isn’t any longer representative of the worldwide Communion.
Since its formation in 2008, the Gafcon grouping (Global Anglican Future Conference) has argued against the liberalising of attitudes towards sexuality. This week, nevertheless, it argued about something more basic: numbers.
At a press conference on Thursday at the top of the Primates’ four-day meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury reported that 32 Provinces were represented on the meeting and nine were absent. At least two of the absentees sent letters in support, and private reasons got for absence. He admitted, though, that others had declined to attend out of conscience, which he described as “very, very grievous” (News, 2 May).
The final communiqué, issued shortly afterwards, expressed regret: “We couldn’t help but feel keenly the absence of friends and colleagues who were unable to be with us, for quite a lot of reasons, at this Primates’ Meeting. We seek their contributions to our continuing discernments in regards to the faith and order of the Communion.”
The chair of the Gafcon Primates’ Council, the Primate of Rwanda, the Most Revd Laurent Mbanda, issued a press release on Monday night in response. “As the communiqué itself acknowledges,” he wrote, “multiple Anglican Primates didn’t attend the gathering. To be specific, 12 primates didn’t attend this meeting in Rome, which suggests that those that did attend represented 30 of the 42 recognized provinces of the Anglican Communion.
“Such numbers are misleading, nevertheless, because the Primates of the three largest Anglican provinces (Nigeria, Uganda, and South Sudan) were amongst those absent. Those Primates who did attend represent a minority, perhaps 30 per cent, of lively Anglicans worldwide. The Communiqué makes no mention of how unrepresentative a gathering this meeting was, nor does it explain the rationale that multiple Primates declined the invitation to participate.”
Asked to make clear the attendance figures, a spokeswoman for the Anglican Communion Office (ACO) said on Tuesday that 32 Primates were present on the Primates’ Meeting. Three of the Provinces — the Episcopal Church within the United States, North India, and Hong Kong — had sent representatives resulting from personal circumstances reminiscent of sick health or family reasons.
She continued: “Of the Provinces not represented, some were unable to attend resulting from personal circumstances or responsibilities of their Provinces. Two wrote letters of encouragement to the meeting. Of all of the provinces invited to the meeting, only 4 didn’t formally reply to the invitation. All Primates have received papers being discussed on the meeting and have been invited to input to discussions through the Office of the Secretary-General on the Anglican Communion Office.”
Archbishop Mbanda, wrote, nevertheless: “Our absence was not accidental, but intentional. Though we do pray for the unity and health of the Anglican Community, we selected to not attend because, as last yr’s Kigali Statement made clear [News, 28 April 2023], the present divisions throughout the Anglican Communion are neither minimal nor latest.
“These divisions have arisen from greater than 25 years of ‘repeated departures from the authority of God’s Word’ that, despite the persistent warnings given by the vast majority of Anglican Primates, have continued unabated.”
In the press conference on Thursday, Archbishop Welby had acknowledged that “The presenting issue stays the choice of the Church of England to explore further the degree to which it should support the blessings of couples in same-sex relationships where those relationships have already been formally established through a civil registration ceremony.”
Also on the panel on the press conference was the Archbishop of Central Africa, the Most Revd Albert Chama, who had earlier described the absences of certain Primates as “quite sad”.
He said: “We feel strongly that as a Church, we’re family, and we’d like to hold each other. . . We hope to encourage our brothers, those that are absent for whatever reason, that next time they need to return to take a seat, talk as a family. . . That great commission will not be only to certain form of people but all of us who profess the religion in Christ Jesus as our Lord.”
Archbishop Mbanda said, nevertheless, that while Anglican unity was desired, “such unity will not be simply a matter of institutional belonging or cultivating attitudes of ‘mutual respect’.” He quoted J. C. Ryle: “If people separate themselves from teaching which is positively false and unscriptural, they must be praised slightly than reproved.”
And he concluded: “The proposals made by the Anglican Primates on the Rome meeting, which consist of minor revisions to the outline of the Anglican Communion and modifications to its existing structures, will do nothing to fix the torn fabric of our Communion. Nothing other than a return to the Lord through deep repentance and renunciation of false teaching by erring provinces will suffice.”
