Je n'ai plus de patience

(c) Herb Gunn, ANCS

Here's where our attention should be today, a sea of purple walking through London, showing solidarity for the Millennium Development Goals. Instead, the press will turn to the on-going drama of the Anglican Communion and the insatiable need of the FOCA/GAFCON crowd to draw attention to themselves.


The Lead reports:

There's a pattern developing at Lambeth, and it's not a pretty one. On the day which was to focus on poverty and violence in Sudan, that message was snowed over by the call from Sudan's bishops for Bishop Robinson to resign, and for property disputes to end. Archbishop Deng said he was speaking for many conservative bishops throughout the Anglican Communion. That pattern is repeated today.

The theme of the Lambeth Conference today is the march of bishops in Central London in support of the MDGs. Certainly, Rowan Williams wants that to be the headline of the day. It is a march that has been mocked in predictable corners of the Anglican blogosphere.

But today is also the day the CCP has chosen to announce (Canadian version here) its intention to petition the FOCA Primates Council for the formation of a "North American province of Gafcon" (whatever that means):

The intention of the CCP Executive Committee is to petition the Primates Council for recognition of the CCP as the North American Province of GAFCON on the basis of the Common Cause Partnership Articles, Theological Statement, and Covenant Declaration, and to ask that the CCP Moderator be seated in the Primates Council.

Today the Diocese of Pittsburgh -- whose bishop, Bob Duncan, is moderator of the CCP -- unveiled a video featuring "laity from parishes of the diocese of Pittsburgh discussing their support for realigning the diocese to another province of the Anglican Communion." Realignment would create property disputes. Note that Martyn Minns of CANA is also a member of the CCP Executive.

It's well known that Bishop Duncan has not been happy at Lambeth. He has been open in his belief the indaba process is rigged against his desired outcome (the experience is just like the US House of Bishops, he says), and he criticized a chant at Sunday Eucharist for its Buddhist content (the tune was Buddhist, but it turns out the (non-English) words were about the trinity).

The Right Rev. George Bruce (Ontario) reports in his blog that his Bible study group at Lambeth "will be losing bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh who will be returning to the US on Friday."

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We are dealing with a bunch of five year-olds who aren't getting their way. To them I say: Stop deflecting our attention from where it should be. Stop whinging about ho-mo-SEX-uality and put your attention where it belongs, the suffering of the world. And to the press, don't take their bait but follow the money, follow where this is being funded. I shouldn't have fallen for it myself but as we say in French, j'en ai marre, to the point that I can barely write anything coherent.

[Later] Even though Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, and I are not on the same page on the role and participation of LGBTs in ordained ministry, he does show how ridiculous the FOCA/GACON focus is in this age in his opinion piece in the Times:

Of course as a Church we need to sort out the splinters in our own eyes before bemoaning the beams in others'. We agonise over internal issues and matters that seem positively trivial when compared with the fact that a child dies of hunger every five seconds and from malaria every thirty seconds.

[...]

Today, I will walk through the centre of London with people from all corners of the globe, and of all faiths and none, as a visible sign to the leaders of our nations that we are watching them - they will not be allowed to break the promises they have made to the poorest among us. The walk is a public pledge to redouble the Church's efforts to work towards total eradication of poverty. With today's walk we hope to recapture some of the atmosphere of hope and optimism that managed to move world leaders sufficiently to make the historic announcements that they did just a few years ago.

Those prayers, rallies, letters and e-mails made a difference then. But they can't just become a memory - we have not yet “made poverty history”. Recommit yourself with us today - and help to support world leaders in keeping the promise as well as pressing banks, money markets and multinational corporations to make our commitment to ending poverty truly global.

For the rest of his comment, go here.