Recommended

Kit Carlson's essay today at the Daily Episcopalian:

I wonder why we have roared on past the thoughtful, balanced, relational and wise reflections of the Virginia Report, to make the Windsor Report a club with which to beat up on some members of the Communion. I wonder why we have abandoned discussion of koinonia and the doctrine of the Trinity to craft a Covenant that is neither interdependent nor relational. ...

How can we work through Windsor without understanding and living out the vision of Virginia? How can we craft a Covenant when we have yet to strive for koinonia?

Background - draft covenant on 19 February

The Anglican Communion Official Website

Report of the Communion Sub-Group

• Covenant Consultation Paper - 'Towards an Anglican Covenant'

Again, "The Primates said that they wish to share the Covenant with the bishops of the Anglican Communion before its public release. Copies of the Covenant Design Group report and the draft Covenant are expected to be made available, along with the Primates' communiqué, on February 19. Aspinall said that they hoped for initial responses from around the Communion within the next 12 months and for a revised version of the Covenant to be presented to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops."

Primates discuss Covenant, Listening Process; continue Windsor consideration

It's all there. Click the headline for the whole story.

One point to note: It seems the next real news (barring leaks, etc.) will come Monday 19 Feb. "The Primates said that they wish to share the Covenant with the bishops of the Anglican Communion before its public release. Copies of the Covenant Design Group report and the draft Covenant are expected to be made available, along with the Primates' communiqué, on February 19. Aspinall said that they hoped for initial responses from around the Communion within the next 12 months and for a revised version of the Covenant to be presented to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops."

Does the sub-committee's report create lock-in? :: Confessions of a Carioca

daily episcopalian gives a further take on the subcommittee's report and points to this post at Confessions of a Carioca.

Quoting C of C:

Over the course of the last 3+ years, the Windsor Report has been warmly embraced by conservative Anglicans. I believe the same evolution of sentiment can and should take place with respect to the sub-group’s report.
...
[He goes on to enumerate why]
...
The center has shifted, and this report is a sign of the shift. A position that once would have been considered explicitly “conservative” in the Anglican universe is, by virtue of the evolved normative authority of the Windsor Report, now seen as middle-of-the-road. Conservatives should be doing back flips over the fact that many liberals in TEC are saying, “Look, told ya so! Two out of three ain’t bad!” when the “two” that we are apparently judged to have gotten right are inherently anathema to the liberal vision.

Tony Clavier adds: "I think your assessment is right on. Now we shall have to see whether moderate bishops will have the courage to come into the open. Many with divided dioceses fear a revolt and others fear they will be called cranks by their peers."

An analysis worthy of further reflection.

Note, however, that the Presiding Bishop, at the same time as the report is issued, is reiterating her position which runs contrary to a commitment to follow traditional teaching:

Earlier Thursday, an aide to Jefferts Schori said she will not soften her views even as the issues threaten to break apart the Christian fellowship.

"The spirit of Anglicanism will prevail here and there will be a middle way forward," Robert Williams told The Associated Press. But Jefferts Schori "will not waver in her stand for justice and inclusion of all people in the body of Christ."

It looks to me that the report gives The Episcopal Church more time to convince the communion that an accomodation of diverse views on homosexuality in the Anglican Communion is the right thing to do.

Conservatives in The Episcopal Church see that as a very slippery slope for them (c.f. women's ordination where some diversity within TEC was initially allowed). I can see the Global South pushing for pre-approval of a contingency plan to go to a two-province solution if The Episcopal Church doesn't get to 3 out of 3, or falls below 2 out of 3.

Addendum: Preludium gives his analysis of the Carioca essay and ties it in with Kendall Harmon's essay linked to in an earlier post below.

Real news: Report of the Communion Sub-Group

Here's the link to the report. (pdf here)

Members of the Sub-Group

The Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Central Africa
The Archbishop of Wales
Chancellor Philippa Amable, Province of West Africa
Canon Elizabeth Paver, Church of England
The Secretary-General

Background:

At their meeting in London in March 2006, the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council nominated four of its members to assist the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion in discerning the response of the Anglican Communion to the decisions of the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Some of these decisions related to requests made of the Episcopal Church in the Primates’ Statement of February 2005 at Dromantine, which incorporated the Primates’ response to the recommendations of the Windsor Report. The group appointed met in London in September 2006.

Jim Naughton at daily episcopalian gives a quick analysis (" I've read it through once, so here is a quick response that I may, no doubt, live to regret: In general it seems a positive evaluation of the Episcopal Church's response to the Windsor Report"). His commenters add more (including Charlotte: "The report, significantly, states that we complied with the Primates' requests (i.e. Dromantine) and not merely the Windsor Report. And it ends with the wish that violations of the Windsor Report's strictures against boundary-crossing could be addressed with equal seriousness. It provides no basis for the "expulsion" or "disciplining" of TEC, and I don't see that it provides much of a rationale for APO, or a "two-province" solution, either.").

Commenters at titusonenine are discouraged. Those at StandFirm call it fudge.

Ruth Gledhill:

'Chilling,' is how Kendall Harmon described it, warning that schism now was even closer than before. This report would have the effect of propelling TEC further away from the centre and hasten any breach that is looming, he said.
...
Kendall Harmon of TitusOneNine was one of the first off the mark. 'It is a really, really poor report. This report was written by someone who was not at General Convention. It is shocking that a report like this could have been written at this stage. General Convention took the Windsor Report and subverted it entirely so they could use it as they wanted to use it and they have already started doing this.
...
Kendall warned that schism had now been brought even closer. 'This has made the survival of the Anglican Communion less likely. That is what breaks my heart. I would say there is an inch of thread left.
...
Fundamentally, the response of TEC to Windsor at GenCon06 was deemed by the group to be adequate except with regard to same-sex blessings. At the meeting, which began at 9am and went through to 5pm at the heavily-guarded White Sands Hotel in Dar es Salaam, both TEC's Primate Katharine Jefferts Schori and the CofE's Dr John Sentamu remained present as full members.
...
At the press conference, Aspinall, pictured above, was asked whether TEC still needed to be disciplined, and whether schism was closer or further away. The answers he gave to both were frustratingly imprecise. He said that although TEC in its GenCon resolutions did not use the precise language of the Windsor Report, it did the most that could have been done, and the reponse was adequate in its own terms.

Gledhill's post ends with a sentence from an email to her from Harmon:

There is now a real chance that South Carolina will not get the necessary consents by the March 9th 2007 deadline, in which case what will be communicated is: no one of traditional faith can be approved as bishop in this province again. Chilling.' "

Uh, no. No one who expresses readiness to take his diocese out The Episcopal Church should be considered for bishop. Which is essentially how the ACC's report concludes as well.