The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) organised this event. See the press release, DIVCCON: CELEBRATING OUR DIVINE COMMONWEALTH.
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) takes another stride with the introduction of Divine Commonwealth Conference (DIVCCON). At a time when the revisionist agenda is ravaging some parts of the global Global Anglican Communion, and we are confronted at home with compromises and shallowness in many aspects, we see this as the time to return to our roots by defending the ancient landmark (Proverbs 22:28) which was built on the ministries of the apostles and focused on Christ as the Biblical story and the cornerstone of our faith…
The conference which has this website, has the full text of many of the talks here.
It has also issued this proclamation:
CONFERENCE STATEMENT
From the first Divine Commonwealth Conference
Held at the National Christian Center, Abuja, Nigeria
7th – 11th, November 2011In the name of God: the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The first Divine Commonwealth Conference was held at the National Christian Centre, Abuja, from Monday 7th to Friday 11th November 2011. It was an international, non-denominational spiritual conference initiated by the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) under the leadership of the Most Reverend Nicholas D. Okoh, Primate.
We, the participants, numbering over 5,000 Bishops, Clergy and Laity, deeply appreciated words of encouragement and goodwill from notable leaders from Nigeria, other parts of Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, including the retired Primate of the Church of Nigeria, the Primates of West Africa and Kenya, the Methodist Archbishop of Abuja and the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God…
For the full text download this PDF file. It is also available on various other websites including here.
It includes the following:
19 Comments10) We are convinced that no community without the living God at its centre is a true Commonwealth. Neither is a “Commonwealth of Nations” a true commonwealth if it does not stand for righteousness. In this regard, we were shocked by the recent statement from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Right Honourable David Cameron, to the effect that his Government would aid only those countries that adhere to “proper human rights”. It is clear that his true agenda is to force the normalization of homosexuality and gay marriage as a human right”. While acknowledging the sacred worth of every human being we reject this erroneous notion as contrary to God’s intention for humankind and harmful to those he claims to protect. Another implication of this is that the “Commonwealth of Nations” is still being treated as a body of unequal partners, where, because of economic status, some nations are still vulnerable to manipulation. We urge the Federal Government of Nigeria to resist any such intimidation on this matter.
Updated Friday 25 November
The Chapter issued this statement on Wednesday:
The Chapter of St Paul’s met today (16 November) and issued the following statement
We are committed to maintaining St Paul’s as a sacred space in the heart of London and we are enormously grateful to all Cathedral staff for meeting the challenges of recent weeks.
We recognise the local authority’s statutory right to proceed with the action it has today.
We have always desired a peaceful resolution and the Canons will continue to hold regular meetings with representative of the protesters.
We remain committed to continuing and developing the agenda on some of the important issues raised by the protest.
Ed Beavan at the Church Times reports today that St Paul’s stays cool as City turns up heat.
Peter Walker and Riazat Butt report in the Guardian that Occupy London: business as usual as eviction deadline passes.
Meanwhile, Giles Fraser also writes for the Guardian that Occupy St Paul’s: no church should insulate itself from raw human need.
And there is a helpful backgrounder on the legal issues by Giles Pinker, see Bid to evict Occupy London is just the start of legal wrangling.
Once again, here is last week’s Church Times press column by Andrew Brown on the coverage of this story, including an explanation of the term “reverse ferret”.
And Christopher Landau wrote about How to stop being a media victim. The fact that Rob Marshall has strongly attacked this article today in the letters to the editor (to which only subscribers have access until next week) should make you want to read it.
Update this letter from Rob Marshall is now available: St Paul’s Cathedral: a PR adviser’s response to criticism, and further reflections. See what you think.
Michael Poon recently wrote an article for the Living Church titled Rebooting Anglican Communication.
In whatever ways we justify and reinterpret the Communion instruments of the Anglican Communion, it is clear the instruments no longer unite Anglican churches worldwide. Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meetings have become obstacles rather than means of healing the Communion’s wounds.
The reasons are clear. The Anglican Communion itself, understood as a Christian World Communion alongside the Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and other families of churches, is a novel idea in the post-Western missionary era. The instruments emerged in haphazard ways amid the devolution of metropolitan authorities from Canterbury and New York to churches in the southern continents. To be sure, they were useful to connect churches with one another in years surrounding the independence of the southern churches.
They have now become part of the problem, and have lost their legitimacy in the new conditions of the new century. For one, international conferences are expensive exercises, which are hardly sustainable in present-day economic conditions. More important, there is a worrying disconnect between what happens at Communion levels and what occurs at local levels. The faithful in their parishes are expected to remain loyal Anglicans week in and week out. To them, the Anglican disputes are irrelevant. Many of them perhaps have not heard about the Anglican Communion Covenant. Churches of weaker numerical strength and in more fragile conditions are sidelined as well in a high-stakes and wasting religious war….
Tobias Haller has published the text of a talk he recently gave, entitled Anglican Disunion: The Issues Behind “the Issue”.
…Let me first say a word or two about where I don’t think we find our identity. And that, ironically, is in the very “Instruments of Communion” which the Proposed Anglican Covenant appears to wish to install at the center of our ecclesiastical life.
The Windsor Report called them “instruments of unity,” which is not a little blasphemous since our unity is in Christ. But those instruments don’t in any case seem to have had the effect of improving unity. The four are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting. These are all relatively recent entities not only in Christianity but even among Anglicans.
Obviously the Archbishop of Canterbury has been around since the late sixth century, But the office only began to function as anything like a voice in a “communion” with the beginnings of that “communion” when the Episcopal Church became an independent entity in 1785-89…
…It was not until 1867 that the first Lambeth Conference was called, largely to deal with problems in the by then much more widely dispersed collection of provinces in the Anglican family. It was a full century after that, in 1968, that the Anglican Consultative Council, a representative body including for the first time laity and clergy as well as bishops, was created. Ten years later, in 1978, the Primates of the Communion gathered for the first time as a separate body.
Obviously these entities can hardly be held to be either “foundational” or “essential” or “definitional” of what it means to be the Anglican Communion, which appears to have gotten on well enough without them for much of its life. Yet since the Windsor Report they have loomed rather larger in the picture. And the pressure towards a single unified body has taken form in the Proposed Anglican Covenant.
Savi Hensman at Ekklesia has just published an article titled A clearer, less divisive Anglican Covenant?
Attempts to bring in an Anglican Covenant which can be used to define Anglicanismand discipline member churches have run into difficulties.
Many are uneasy with this development. In November 2011, it became apparent that the province of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia would reject it.
In the words of a diocesan resolution, one of its clauses contains ‘provisions which are contrary to our understanding of Anglican ecclesiology, to our understanding of the way of Christ, and to justice’.
Perhaps it is time to abandon such efforts and build on the foundations laid six years ago by the Anglican Consultative Council, when it agreed a very different Covenant for Communion in Mission…
Meanwhile, Fulcrum published A Churchgoer’s Guide to the Anglican Communion Covenant.
The whole Anglican Communion is considering whether to adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant. All Church of England dioceses and many deaneries are discussing it in coming months before it returns to General Synod in 2012. Fulcrum has consistently supported the covenant but is aware that there is little accessible material explaining it. As a result, many people are relatively uninformed or are being misinformed about it and its significance by some opponents. We have therefore produced this short briefing paper which answers some common questions and provides ten reasons to support the Covenant…
This prompted the No Anglican Covenant Coalition to publish: A Detailed Response to Fulcrum.
51 CommentsRecently, Fulcrum, an English Evangelical organization, issued a document offering ten points allegedly explaining why Evangelical Christians should support the adoption of the Covenant. The No Anglican Covenant Coalition (NACC) has published below a brief overview of why the ten points are inadequate reasons for Evangelicals to support the adoption. In this document we offer point-by-point refutation…
On Monday, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke at the annual Lord Mayor of London’s Banquet. The full text of his speech is available here.
This was reported by Riazat Butt in the Guardian as Archbishop pays tribute to St Paul’s cathedral clergy for ‘holding balance’.
And Nick Spencer of Theos published Comment: St Paul’s protest has revealed pressures at the heart of the Church at politics.co.uk.
Earlier, the Church of England Mission and Public Affairs Council had published The Church and capitalism (press release, leading to PDF document.)
On Tuesday, Riazat Butt and Shiv Malik at the Guardian reported Occupy London camp given 24 hours to disband or face legal action
Activists camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral will be given 24 hours to remove their tents and equipment before high court proceedings are issued, the City of London corporation said on Tuesday.
Occupy London, which arrived in the churchyard on 15 October, last week rejected a request to scale back part of its camp to allow better fire engine access. The notice applies to tents standing on public highways.
St Paul’s is meeting on Wednesday to decide how to respond to the corporation’s decision. A spokesman said the cathedral was still “working towards a peaceful outcome”.
Stuart Fraser, policy chairman at the corporation, said: “We paused legal action for two weeks for talks with those in the camp on how to shrink the extent of the tents and to set a departure date – but got nowhere. So, sadly, now they have rejected a reasonable offer to let them stay until the new year, it’s got to be the courts. We’d still like to sort this without court action but from now on we will have to have any talks in parallel with court action – not instead…
Cathy Newman at Channel 4 News interviewed Stuart Fraser, see Talks break down between St Paul’s protesters and officials.
The protesters have issued this: Occupy London statement on renewed legal action from the City of London Corporation.
9 CommentsPress release from the Church of England: Archbishops question case for elected House of Lords.
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York question the rationale for a wholly or mainly elected House of Lords in their submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Government’s Draft Bill and White Paper (the submission can be read on the CofE website).
Whilst welcoming the Draft Bill’s proposals to provide continued places for bishops of the established Church in a partly appointed House, the Archbishops ask that the appointments process also have regard to increasing the presence of leaders of other denominations and faiths.
The Draft Bill and White Paper proposes a House of Lords of 300 members, with either 80% or 100% elected by proportional representation. If the reformed House were to retain an appointed element, there would be places for Church of England bishops, though reduced to 12 from their current 26. Bishops would not be allowed to remain in a 100% elected House under the Government’s plans…
The full submission is available as a PDF file here.
15 CommentsFirst, there were several articles in the Church Times last week, that have only now become available to non-subscribers. Although events have moved on, I list them:
Richard Chartres Time for the Church to be heard
Arnold Hunt Lessons from history at St Paul’s
Paul Vallely Turn the debate back to the money
Andrew Brown Press: With the Express on their side
…FROM a PR point of view, there was a special difficulty with the whole story. The Church of England is widely misunderstood to be an organisation. Therefore, the man at the top is expected to be able to control his subordinates. Thus the wider Church, which largely disagreed with the Chapter’s line, was unable to say anything to criticise it.
But these difficulties are made to be overcome. The fact that the cathedral had outsourced its PR to the Revd Rob Marshall, a nice man but one based outside Hull, suggests that the Church is so used to being ignored that, when the country was, for a moment, interested in its opinions, it was almost entirely unable to handle it.
Now, turning to this week’s issue:
Ed Thornton Church support for camps is tested by protesters’ conduct
…Senior clerics this week expressed unease at the way that St Paul’s had initially responded to the protesters. The Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Revd Nick Holtam, told Salisbury diocesan synod last Saturday that the threat to evict the protesters “showed the cathedral as willing to use the power of the City of London to protect itself, which is the very thing that worries the rest of us.
“Whilst it is not clear from the New Testament whether the Church is of, with, or for the poor, the Church isn’t credible if we don’t attempt something along one of those lines. St Paul’s seem not to have asked themselves that root question, and they lacked the instinct to respond to the great opportunity of a crisis.”The Bishop of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, the Rt Revd Nigel Stock, said this week that he “was not alone in being astonished that the decision was taken to close St Paul’s”. The decision to reopen the cathedral, and the high-profile resignations of the Dean and the Canon Fraser “increased the impressions of chaos”.
In an article published on his diocesan website, the Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth, wrote of the “irony of careful, professional, well-meaning advice on managing a potentially dangerous and threatening situation closing the doors on the gospel practices of hospitality, engagement and the patient building of trusting relationships.”
St Paul’s had, though, managed to realign itself, he said, “through some brave decisions, some courageous public contrition, and decisive leadership from the Bishop of London”. This helped to “open up an opportunity for real debate on the matters that really do count”.
and also
We shan’t listen to advice, say bankers
…Seventy-six per cent of those surveyed in the report disagreed — most of them strongly — with the statement: “The City of London needs to listen more to the guidance of the Church.” In addition, 47 per cent said that they “never attend a religious service or meeting, apart from special occasions”, and 38 per cent said that they did not believe in God…
Leader Restoring a human scale to the City
0 CommentsTHERE are perhaps other interpretations, but it is reassuring that 76 per cent of the bankers interviewed for the St Paul’s Institute do not think that they should listen more to the guidance of the Church. Had they thought otherwise, and the present injustices of the City been practised by sermon-listening citizens, it would have pointed to a much more fundamental problem than the Church’s being just a bit feeble at putting its arguments across. Now, at least, its task is clear: to develop the sort of knowledge that professionals in the financial sector will respect, and use it to argue the case for the imposition of the checks and balances that will bring the City back in touch with some sort of moral code…
The diocesan synod of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich has debated the Anglican Covenant, and voted against the motion put to it by the General Synod, i.e.
“That this Synod approve the draft Act of Synod adopting the Anglican Communion Covenant”.
The voting was as follows:
For Against Abstentions Bishops 2 0 0 Clergy 9 29 4 Laity 8 33 9
The papers provided in advance for this debate can be found here.
More details of the meeting will be posted on the diocesan website soon.
4 CommentsUpdated again Monday evening
A High Court judge has ruled that a Roman Catholic bishop may be held vicariously liable for the acts of one of his priests, even though the priest is an office holder rather than an employee. There are reports that the ruling will be appealed.*
The full text of the judgment is available here (PDF).
A good explanation of the case by Adam Wagner at UK HumanRights Blog Bishop can be vicariously liable for priest’s sex abuse, rules High Court
Press reports:
Guardian Riazat Butt Catholic church can be held responsible for wrongdoing by priests
BBC High Court rules Catholic Church liable over priests
Independent Jerome Taylor Catholic church liable over priests
Channel 4 News Catholic church liable for priests charged with abuse
Updates
Neil Addison has written about this case at Religion Law Blog under the headline Catholic Bishops and Vicarious Liability for Priests.
The RC Bishop of Portsmouth, Crispian Hollis, issued a statement, available here as a PDF, or over here, which inter alia made clear that no decision had yet been taken about whether or not to appeal this decision.
27 CommentsUpdated again Thursday morning
The Guardian has published a news report by Riazat Butt concerning an article published on 28 October in the Church of England Newspaper.
Anglican newspaper defends ‘Gaystapo’ article.
An Anglican newspaper has defended the publication of an article that compares gay rights campaigners to Nazis, saying the author has “pertinent views”.
The column, by former east London councillor Alan Craig, appeared in the 28 October edition of the Church of England Newspaper, one of the oldest newspapers in the world. Although it is independent of the institution bearing the same name, it carries adverts for Church of England jobs and is read by its clergy…
The full text of the original article can be found here.
Although the formatting is hard to decipher, you can see some of the CEN letters to the editor which are referred to in the article, by going here.
See also this article on the Anglican Mainstream website, whose trustees etc. are listed here. This extract from the article by Alan Craig is not linked or credited to the CEN.
Updates
Alan Wilson has written at Cif belief Hitler and the ‘Gaystapo’ have no place in gay rights debate
Nick Baines has written Allo Allo?
50 CommentsThe report from St Paul’s Institute that was recently delayed is now published.
See Value and Values: Perceptions of Ethics in the City Today
Download the full report from here. (PDF, 1.6 Mb)
From the press release:
Professionals in the Financial Services sector believe that City bond traders, FTSE Chief Executives and stock brokers are paid too much, teachers are paid too little and that there is too great a gap between rich and poor in the UK, according to a survey carried out by ComRes on behalf of St Paul’s Institute.
Marking the 25th anniversary of the financial ‘Big Bang’, the survey also indicates that the majority of Financial Services professionals do not know that the London Stock Exchange’s motto is ‘My Word is My Bond’ and many think that deregulation of financial markets results in less ethical behaviour…
From the Notes:
3 CommentsBecause the report was completed preceding the Occupy London encampment outside the cathedral it makes no mention of it and contains contributions from both the former Dean and Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral. We are releasing the report in its original and unaltered form. The report was always intended to help develop a context for serious engagement that moves beyond colloquialisms about the financial sector and towards an understanding of true opinion and the culture of ethics in the City today.
Independent Matt Thomas, Brian Brady We are paid too much, bankers confess in St Paul’s survey
Mail Jonathan Petre and Lawrie Holmes St Paul’s Cathedral funded by 80 wealthy City asset-strippers
Yorkshire Post John Sentamu Our unequal, unjust society… the richest are getting richer and the poorest lose all hope
Telegraph Ken Costa St Paul’s initiative: ‘It’s time for radical change’
Joan Bakewell My verdict on the St Paul’s protest
Observer Yvonne Roberts Is capitalism broken… and what is the world going to do to fix it?
Guardian Richard Coles St Paul’s, the church’s reality check
4 CommentsTwo reports from New Zealand:
AnglicanTaonga Maori quash Anglican Covenant
The Anglican Covenant is all but dead in the water as far as this church is concerned. This follows a crucial vote by Tikanga Maori at its biennial runanganui in Ohinemutu today.
The Covenant will still come before General Synod in July, but a decision to accept it requires a majority vote in all three houses – lay, clergy and bishops – and by all three tikanga.
Today’s runanganui decision effectively binds all Maori representatives on General Synod to say no…
Bosco Peters writes at Liturgy Maori reject Anglican Covenant
13 CommentsIn order for people to understand the significance of this news, you need to comprehend the decision-making processes of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Like other Anglican Churches, a decision made (for example at General Synod) needs the agreement of all three houses – bishops, clergy, laity. But in our Church, at General Synod level, it also needs the agreement of all three Tikanga (cultural streams)…
Today’s Church Times has extensive coverage, some of which will not be available to non-subscribers until next week.
Ed Thornton Dean goes, Chartres steps in, as St Paul’s turns 180 degrees
Also Cameron comes out in support of Dr Williams
And scroll down that page for Ed Beavan Protesters are tired but sympathetic.
Giles Fraser Sitting on a fault-line at St Paul’s
Leader St Paul’s: going in the right direction
There is also comment elsewhere:
Economist Bells and yells
Telegraph Martin Beckford, and Victoria Ward Giles Fraser: Church risks being ‘spiritual arm of heritage industry’
And Nick Baines has written Playing the game.
9 CommentsAmended Monday morning
The Government Equalities Office has published its response to the consultation held on this subject. The written ministerial statement is recorded here.
The document includes a copy of the draft regulations which will be laid before parliament shortly.
Download the full document via this link (PDF 776k)
Note The document published at the above link on 2 November was replaced by a revised version on 4 November. The GEO press office has confirmed that this was to correct a minor error.
From the Introduction:
1.1 Following a listening exercise held last year by Lynne Featherstone MP, Minister for Equalities, with a range of faith and lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) groups, the Government announced on 17 February 2011 its intention to remove the legal barrier to civil partnerships being registered on religious premises by implementing section 202 of the Equality Act 2010.
1.2 Making this change will allow those religious organisations that wish to do so to host civil partnership registrations on their religious premises. This voluntary provision is a positive step forward for both LGB rights and religious freedom.
1.3 The Government published a consultation document on 31 March 2011, seeking views on the practical arrangements necessary to implement this change. The consultation ran until June 23 2011. This document provides a summary of the responses received during the consultation.
1.4 1,617 responses to the consultation were received. Of these, 343 responses were on the official pro forma which addressed each question in turn and 1,274 were responses by email or letter. Of those submitting the official pro forma, 145 were from organisations and 198 from individuals.
1.5 All responses were gratefully received and individually considered by the Government Equalities Office.
1.6 A copy of the draft regulations to implement the proposals consulted on is included as part of this document and reflects the many useful and constructive responses received during the consultation period. These regulations will be laid before Parliament shortly so that they are able to come into force by the end of 2011, subject to the will of Parliament…
The official Church of England response to the consultation was reported previously, see Registration of Civil Partnerships in Religious Premises from June.
At that time, the official press release said:
“That means that there needs to be an ‘opting in’ mechanism of the kind that the Government has proposed. In the case of the Church of England that would mean that its churches would not be able to become approved premises for the registration of civil partnerships until and unless the General Synod had first decided as a matter of policy that that should be possible.”
Yesterday the following official Church of England response was issued:
We will study the draft regulations as a matter of urgency to check that they deliver the firm assurances that have been given to us and others that the new arrangements will operate by way of denominational opt-in. If Ministers have delivered what they said they would in terms of genuine religious freedom, we would have no reason to oppose the regulations. The House of Bishops’ statement of July 2005 made it clear that the Church of England should not provide services of blessing for those who register civil partnerships and that remains the position. The Church of England has no intention of allowing Civil Partnerships to be registered in its churches.
The Church of England website has this page: Civil Partnerships.
20 CommentsIn addition to the piece already linked below, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Time for us to challenge the idols of high finance, here are some more articles on the economic issues involved. (h/t Fulcrum)
Ken Costa wrote in the Financial Times about Why the City should heed the discordant voices of St Paul’s. An edited version is available here..
Luke Bretherton wrote The Real Battle of St Paul’s Cathedral: The Occupy Movement and Millennial Politics.
And we linked here earlier to Occupy London is a nursery for the mind by Madeleine Bunting.
In addition to those recommendations, today there is also:
Jonathan Bartley Occupy LSX and the Church: Why the danger isn’t over
And for some other comments, see also:
Dan Milmo Occupy protesters should target governments not City, LSE chairman says
Sunny Hundal The Church of England should be a natural ally for Occupy protesters
Alan Green Outside St Paul’s Cathedral sits a mess, but it’s a holy mess
2 CommentsGuardian
Alan Rusbridger St Paul’s seeks new direction and suspends legal action
Editorial St Paul’s protests: faith in the City
Peter Walker St Paul’s and Corporation of London halt legal action against Occupy camp
Stephen Bates Big tent church: clerics across England lean on side of the angels
Riazat Butt What do clergy who have resigned do next?
Telegraph
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams calls for new tax on bankers
George Pitcher Murdering St Paul’s Cathedral
3 CommentsLambeth Palace has published the full text of an article written for the Financial Times by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
See Time for us to challenge the idols of high finance.
7 CommentsIt’s sometimes been said in recent years that the Church of England is still used by British society as a sort of stage on which to conduct by proxy the arguments that society itself doesn’t know how to handle. It certainly helps to explain the obsessional interest in what the Church has to say about issues of sex and gender. It may help to explain just what has been going on around St Paul’s Cathedral in the last couple of weeks.
The protest at St Paul’s was seen by an unexpectedly large number of people as the expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment that shows no sign at all of diminishing. There is still a powerful sense around – fair or not – of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of messages not getting through; of impatience with a return to ‘business as usual’ – represented by still soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices.
So it was not surprising that initial reactions to what was happening at St Paul’s and to the welcome offered by the Cathedral were quite sympathetic. Here were people – protesters and clergy too, it seemed – saying on our behalf that ‘something must be done’. A marker had been put down, though, comfortingly, not in a way that made any very specific demands.
The cataract of unintended consequences that followed has been dramatic. The Cathedral found itself trapped between what must have looked like equally unpleasant alternative courses of action. Two outstandingly gifted clergy have resigned. The Chapter has now decided against legal action. Everyone has been able to be wise after the event and to pour scorn on the Cathedral in particular and the Church of England in general for failing to know how to square the circle of public interest and public protest….
Following the announcement this morning from St Paul’s, there has been a further development, in that the City of London has issued this press release:
City of London Corporation presses ‘pause’ button overnight on St Paul’s legal action
Stuart Fraser, the City of London Corporation’s Policy Chairman, said today:
‘The Church has changed its standpoint and announced it is suspending legal action on its land.Given that change, we’ve pressed the ‘pause’ button overnight on legal action affecting the highways – in order to support the Cathedral as an important national institution and give time for reflection.
‘We want to leave more space for a resolution of this difficult issue – while at the same time not backing away from our responsibilities as a Highway Authority.
‘We’re hoping to use a pause – probably of days not weeks – to work out a measured solution.
‘We will make a further announcement tomorrow lunchtime.’Ends
The press release also links to a summary of last Friday’s committee meeting (PDF)
Media reports on all this:
Guardian
Peter Walker St Paul’s and Corporation of London halt legal action against Occupy camp and earlier Riazat Butt St Paul’s Cathedral suspends legal action to evict Occupy protesters
Telegraph
St Paul’s legal action suspension a ‘breakthrough’ (video from press briefing)
Victoria Ward, and Richard Alleyne Protesters at St Paul’s claim victory as legal action is suspended and earlier Victoria Ward St Paul’s suspends legal action against protesters
1 Commentpress release from Diocese of London website and now also the cathedral website
21 CommentsSt Paul’s Suspends Legal Action Against Protest Camp
St Paul’s, 1 November 2011 (All Saints Day)
The Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral has unanimously agreed to suspend its current legal action against the protest camp outside the church, following meetings with Dr Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, late last night and early this morning.
The resignation of the Dean, the Rt Rev Graeme Knowles, has given the opportunity to reassess the situation, involving fresh input from the Bishop. Members of Chapter this morning have met with representatives from the protest camp to demonstrate that St Paul’s intends to engage directly and constructively with both the protesters and the moral and ethical issues they wish to address, without the threat of forcible eviction hanging over both the camp and the church.
It is being widely reported that the Corporation of London plans to ask protesters to leave imminently. The Chapter of course recognises the Corporation’s right to take such action on Corporation land.
The Bishop has invited investment banker, Ken Costa, formerly Chair of UBS Europe and Chairman of Lazard International, to spearhead an initiative reconnecting the financial with the ethical. Mr Costa will be supported by a number of City, Church and public figures, including Giles Fraser, who although no longer a member of Chapter, will help ensure that the diverse voices of the protest are involved in this.
The Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres, said: “The alarm bells are ringing all over the world. St Paul’s has now heard that call. Today’s decision means that the doors are most emphatically open to engage with matters concerning not only those encamped around the Cathedral but millions of others in this country and around the globe. I am delighted that Ken Costa has agreed to spearhead this new initiative which has the opportunity to make a profound difference.”
The Rt Rev Michael Colclough, Canon Pastor of St Paul’s Cathedral and a member of Chapter, added: “This has been an enormously difficult time for the Cathedral but the Chapter is unanimous in its desire to engage constructively with the protest and the serious issues that have been raised, without the threat of legal action hanging over us. Legal concerns have been at the forefront in recent weeks but now is the time for the moral, the spiritual and the theological to come to the fore.”
ENDS
Updated Tuesday 8 am
Church Times
Ed Thornton Monday: Dean of St Paul’s resigns
Evening Standard
Tom Harper, Miranda Bryant and Peter Dominiczak Dean who shut St Paul’s resigns: second cleric quits over ‘tent city’ protest
Guardian
Peter Walker Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral resigns over Occupy London protest row and later version for tomorrow’s paper St Paul’s Cathedral dean resigns over Occupy London protest row
Riazat Butt Graeme Knowles resignation ‘very sad news’, says archbishop of Canterbury
And later, for tomorrow’s paper St Pauls brought to its knees by confusion and indecision
Telegraph
Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral resigns with ‘great sadness’ over Occupy London protest (video)
Victoria Ward Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral resigns over Occupy London protest
And Rowan Williams warns of ‘urgent issues’ raised by protests as third St Paul’s clergyman resigns
Martin Beckford, Victoria Ward and Richard Alleyne St Paul’s Cathedral protesters: cloistered clerics who can only pray for an end to the crisis and also Timeline of the St Paul’s protest
Independent
Jerome Taylor St Paul’s dean quits over protest
BBC
St Paul’s Dean Graeme Knowles resigns over protests
St Paul’s protesters urged to remove tents
Channel 4 News St Paul’s dean resigns over Occupy London protest
12 Comments