From the Episcopal Café via Thinking Anglicans:
"Note this response from the Secretary General of the Church of England to a written question from a Synod member:"
Mr Justin Brett (Oxford) to ask the Secretary General:
Q2. What research has been undertaken to establish the effect of the Church of England’s participation in an Anglican Communion Covenant upon the relationship between the Church of England and the Crown, given the Queen’s position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the consequent tension between her prerogative and the potential demands of a disciplinary process within the proposed Covenant?
Mr William Fittall to reply as Secretary General:
A. The Church of England response of 19 December 2007 to the initial draft Covenant noted on page 13 that ‘it would be unlawful for the General Synod to delegate its decision making powers to the primates, and that this therefore means that it could not sign up to a Covenant which purported to give the primates of the Communion the ability to give ‘direction’ about the course of action that the Church of England should take.’ The same would be true in relation to delegation to any other body of the Anglican Communion. Since as a matter of law the Church of England could not submit itself to any such external power of direction, any separate possible difficulties in relation to the Royal Prerogative could not in practice arise.
If I read this opinion correctly, the Church of England cannot sign away its authority to the primates of the Anglican Communion. This seems nearly incredible, because I can't believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury could have overlooked this. I hope, with all my heart, that it is true. I wondered, with the reigning monarch as head of the Church of England, if the British Parliament and the consent of the Queen would be required before the C of E could sign the Covenant.
I never liked the idea of the Covenant at all, no matter what the wording. We have the New Covenant of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Baptismal Covenant. Why do we need another Covenant? Would the Design Covenant Group come up with something vital that is lacking in the two covenants we have?
The commentary at EC and TA are both worth reading. My favorite is at TA, "Thank God for the Crown."
Are we allowed to laugh, Mimi?
ReplyDelete"Beautiful soup so rich and green..." Lewis Carroll
Susan, I was so gleeful when I posted that I had to edit several times for mistakes after hitting publish. This would be the ABC's crowning achievement - no pun intended, of course.
ReplyDeleteOh that's rich!
ReplyDeleteI confess that my first thought on reading that was:
ReplyDeleteHa, ha! Ha, ha all OVER you!!!!"
I see you have your blogging eye back in then.
ReplyDeleteDP, that hurt. I was out for what - a day? I'd have to look it up. When I dashed off the emails, I really meant what I said. Really.
ReplyDeleteI'm still afraid to believe that this is true.
ReplyDeleteOh I love being a royalist even if it is unpopular down here.
ReplyDeleteGM, this is quite true. There is a legal obstacle to the Church of England surrendering its autonomy. One would have thought the Articles of Religion, which allow "no foreign bishop" any authority in England, and the whole idea of national churchdom upon which the English version of the Reformation is based, would be enough.
ReplyDeleteRowan, however, is a dreamer, with eyes cast towards Rome, towards a World-Church (as that's what "really" makes a church a church). He is also on record as opposing the Establishment, which may, in the long run, be part of his agenda.
This is more than a mere matter of governance, however. As I read it, even were Crown and Parliament choose to do so, they could not sign away the independence of the C of E. It is a deeply constitutional matter. Though, in these heady times, I suppose anything is possible.
What then is the ABC about? This will drag on for years, stirring up trouble, to what purpose? To keep the AC from a formal split on his watch? That's already happening.
ReplyDeleteMimi,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.
I've been waiting for someone to ask this question and the response is exactly what I expected.
As you say almost anything can happen and Wales has often been quoted about his ambivalence about being the Supreme Governor of the Church, and would rather be the Defender of All the Faiths.
Ha! Could it be that the monarchy saves the day for sanity? How rich is that?
ReplyDeleteI have stopped trying to understand the ABC.
chere Mimi bien-aime
ReplyDeleteI roared with laughter when I first read this post less than 24 hours ago.
But this morning, my inbox includes e-mails from four priests among those with whom I shared the links you provided.
Their pain and anger literaly moved me to tears. All outstanding men and women who answered the call of that 'Love beyond our wildest imagining,' priests who (it has been my personal experience)do everything in their power to embody the Good News of Jesus Christ, but whose hearts are broken over and over again by the antics of the patriarchy.
Not one gay priest among them, but they, like you, have taken the larger vision and understanding of our Church's vocation to their hearts, and this morning their tears are mine too.
David @ Montreal
Brian, thank God for the Crown.
ReplyDeleteGerry, he's a mystery to me. He may want a church like Rome, but he will not have a church like Rome.
What will the Covenant be without the Episcopal Church in the US, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Church of England as signatories?
SCG, if it is the monarchy that saves the day, I'll have a bit to answer for with my jokes about certain members of the royal family - not the Queen, for she has conducted herself quite well.
ReplyDeleteDavid, my heart has been broken many times by what seemed to me harsh words against your church and my church by the ABC. It still hurts when I think of Bp. Gene locked out of Lambeth. That was an insult not only to the people of New Hampshire, but to the whole Episcopal Church. His continuing support for the Covenant will only serve to cause further trouble in the Communion.
I doubt that he will have over-looked it, but there are others aplying pressure for the disestablishment of the CofE for a variety of reasons. A disestablished church would be free to sign up to anything it wished to, even if it is a contract incorrectly termed as a covenant, to amke it sound all fluffy and biblical.
ReplyDeleteTheMe, how many years would it take for the process of disestablishment of the CofE to happen? Meanwhile he is enabling mischief. Let Rowan have his Covenant, then. The Episcopal Church in the US will not sign on, nor will the Anglicans in Canada.
ReplyDeleteTechnically, about 4-5 years. Practically, who knows? How long would it take to create a political shift of thinking to make that happen...I don't know. But such a covenant could be used as a further argument in favour.
ReplyDelete