Press coverage continues…
Associated Press Nigerians, Anglicans Clash Over Gays
Telegraph Clifford Longley It’s independence day – again
Observer Will Hutton A schism that threatens us all
BBC Anglican split ‘a matter of time’
The BBC World Service has an interview with Josiah Idowu-Fearon (about 27 minutes, starts about 30 seconds into the recording)
…In this week’s edition of The Interview, Owen Bennett-Jones goes to the heart of the matter in his conversation with Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Archbishop of Kaduna state in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Anglican church – one of the biggest communities in the communion – has led the criticism over the appointment of homosexual clergy. The row began in 2003 when the American Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay bishop…
The BBC radio programme Sunday which has a larger audience than many Sunday newspapers sell copies carried this:
Primates Meeting listen here with Real Audio (14 minutes)
Was it a fudge, the beginning of the end, or a step back from the brink? I refer to the communique issued by the Primates of the Anglican Communion at the end of their crisis meeting in Northern Ireland this week. One observer said “The Primates have handed the North Americans a pearl handled revolver”. The communique dealt almost exclusively with the split between the North American churches, which have consecrated as bishop someone who has a homosexual partner and which have blessed same sex marriages, and conservative Christians in the rest of the world who believe practising homosexuality is a sin, and who have called for the liberal North Americans to repent. Caught in the middle is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Roger hears from the conservative Archbishop of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez, and the Presiding Bishop of Ecusa, Frank Griswold, and then talks live to The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, from Lambeth Palace.
Press Association report on the above radio interview, Williams Admits Gay Row has Caused Serious “Fractures”
BBC report of the interview Williams admits church ‘fracture’
BBC World Service Divine division? listen here
Graham Kings and Stephen Bates interviewed about the Primates’ Meeting on BBC World Service World Update (hat tip KH)
Some other items not reported earlier:
BBC interview of a spokesman for Peter Akinola, on Saturday’s Today Programme: listen here (3.5 minutes)
CNEWS Gay debate divides Anglican faith
Toronto Globe and Mail Top cleric faces rift among Anglicans
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Steve Levin Anglicans push U.S. church off key council
Two Church of Ireland press releases:
Irish Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) members comment on recent devlopments in the Anglican Communion
Bishop of Cork asks: “Has Anglican Primates’ Meeting exceeded its powers?”
Ruth Gledhill wrote up the Armagh Evensong for the regular Times Saturday feature At Your Service which can be compared with the account of this service from an insider published exclusively here.
Perhaps we need to ask “What is the Anglican Communion for?” – and i mean the Anglican COMMUNION not this odd worldwide Anglican church that seems to exist in the minds of journalists. The 1948 Lambeth Conference thought the vocation of anglicanism was to disappear- within a decade more or less an Executive Officer had been appointed, and from then on,paradoxically, the communion was on the path to greater centralization – see the tail end to my piece in The Study of Anglicanism ed Sykes/Booty.One result of this was the ending of unity schemes in Ghana/Sri Lanka/Nigeria et al and… Read more »
Perry Butler wrote: “The Cof E is in full communion with the Old Caths of the Netherlands who bless same-sex unions, “ This is, of course, the Old Catholic Church of which Cardinal Ratzinger remarked that it was neither old, nor Catholic, nor a church! There has always been a certain peculiarity about the relationship between Anglicans and OCs. The relationship was rather opportunistically pushed by Anglo-Catholics, who wanted something the OCs had got – orders recognised as valid by Rome – but who were quietly horrified by their anti-Roman stance on the Marian doctrines in which the “spikes” fervently… Read more »
“the Old Catholic Church of which Cardinal Ratzinger remarked that it was neither old, nor Catholic, nor a church!”
Of course, not only is this a terribly rude, mean-spirited thing for the Cardinal to say (tho’ not surprising), but the fact that Ratzinger doesn’t approve of the OCs makes them all the more a *good* and desirable bunch of people in my eyes 😉