Louis Crew receives an email :: Church Times

Church Times (UK), January 26 (web version in full):

Secretary-general hints at ‘difficulties’ with Dr Williams
by a staff reporter

DISQUIET at the attitude of Dr Williams to the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) is shared by the secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, Canon Kenneth Kearon, it was revealed this week.

Last week, the Bishop of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, the Rt Revd Paul Marshall, criticised the Archbishop for cold-shouldering the Episcopal Church (News, 19 January). The relationship was “distant, confused, and multiply triangulated”, wrote Bishop Marshall.

In an unguarded email to Louis Crewe, who runs the pro-gay Integrity organisation in the US, Canon Kearon writes that he had sent Bishop Marshall’s criticism to Dr Williams.

“Sadly, it’s very accurate, and is almost the script for a very difficult meeting I had with him last Wednesday,” he writes. “We discussed absolute limits of appeasement, and also how a future direction might be identified.”

More cryptically, he ends his email: “Advisers (and sadly I’m not one of them) are at the heart of this.”

Via MadPriest who has more to say about Rowan Williams' advisers at Lambeth Palace.

UPDATE: I'd failed to notice that Jim Naughton at daily episcopalian also picked up this story. In his post Jim links the story above with this news:

Archbishop of Canterbury has invited Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, to attend a special session of the Primates Meeting to be held on Wednesday February 14 in Tanzania. Duncan has accepted.

Another Episcopal bishop, as yet unnamed, will also receive an invitation, the magazine reports.

This is a great public relations victory for Duncan and the Network, and the archbishop has to be aware of that.

It would be nice if the player to be named later is a bishop who has not asked for alternative primatial oversight and who wholeheartedly supports PB Schori. But the damage has been done. This is a meetings of primates. Duncan is not a primate.

At titusonenine the comments r.e. Duncan story are plentiful.

UPDATE 2: 2nd bishop named. Preludium has the story:

The choice of Bishop MacPherson is an interesting one. He is a fine bishop and has just recently been made the President of the Presiding Bishop's Council of Advice. He is conservative but a very constructive and pastoral person. His presence is, however, contrary to the Council of Advice's own read of the matter of inviting additional people from the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal News Service article on the meeting said this; "The Council was not encouraging of the Archbishop of Canterbury's consideration of additional "dissenting" bishops from this Church attending the Primates' Meeting."

So Bishop MacPherson goes as the President of a Council that advised against consideration of additional "dissenting" bishops attending the meeting. Believing him to be a person of great integrity I am sure he goes not as a "dissenting" bishop and not with the understanding that he is attending the Primates Meeting. We may rightly hope that he will be a moderate voice.