Video: Presiding Bishop responds to primates’ actions, stresses relationships

By Matthew Davies
Posted Jan 15, 2016

[Episcopal News Service – Canterbury, England] Presiding Bishop Michael Curry expresses the importance of mission partnerships, relationships grounded in common faith, companion diocese and parish-to-parish relationships; relationships that follow the way of Jesus of Nazareth in addressing poverty and hunger. Speaking outside the gates to Canterbury Cathedral, Curry said these things are the true strengths of the Anglican Communion.

 

 

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Comments (17)

  1. Diane Corlett says:
    January 15, 2016 at 11:08 am

    Bishop, Please call out the provinces who refuse to ordain or allow the ministries of ordained women. Why have they not been suspended?

    1. Faye Carroll says:
      January 15, 2016 at 11:17 am

      Because they don’t want too like a lot of other dioceses and churches that don’t allow a woman to preside over communion or take up an offering plate. Each diocese has it own rules pertaining to women and what duties they may perform.

      1. Mary Greig-Clayton says:
        January 16, 2016 at 5:00 pm

        Hi Faye are you the Faye Carroll who plays the piano brilliantly and lived in Days Bay during the late 1970’s Mary Greig-Clayton

  2. Margaret Sjoholm-Franks says:
    January 15, 2016 at 11:29 am

    Life will go on…we’ll keep praying, worshiping and doing our work, gays will keep on marrying and creating loving families, will keep on living in committed relationships, no matter of what an African bishop may say or do. I just hope TEC stops funding bureaucratic structures…out of sheer dignity the Anglican Communion should refuse any funding from us, after all our money is sinful and will taint the holiness of their churches

  3. Doug Desper says:
    January 15, 2016 at 12:10 pm

    Being sanctioned isn’t being removed from the Communion. It is a reduction to observer status.
    So say at least 3/4 of the Primates.

    We must be honest — really honest right now. Those with working memories know that we have spoken (as a Province) with a forked tongue while agreeing to positions as a member of the Communion. In 1998 and again in 2007 we agreed to self-restraint on making seismic shifts in sexuality issues and broke our word within months. Before 2012 notable bishops of this Church charged ahead with redefining marriage without General Convention authorization and without honoring the word as a member of the Anglican Communion. No consequences came. If that’s what TEC’s power base wanted, then fine. But, with the curtain now open, let’s stop messing about. Let’s just get on with breaking from the Anglican Communion. Have the honesty to do it. Considering the present accusations, rejections, and confrontations being expressed in the Episcopal blogosphere I don’t think this Church’s power base can take back what is being flung. The Communion’s memories will be working three years from now and recall the names and faces, and acid words of these days. Oddly, the majority of the Primates don’t seem panicked about the threats to withhold money. As one commenter just said…”Life will go on”. Oddly they don’t see the need to justify times of weakness and mistakes by their Provinces to our Province when we dare not hear our own story.

    Instead of 85 million members the Anglican Communion would have 83.5 million (absent us). But we cannot continue to have it both ways. To disparage, accuse, defame, and blame the others (in elitist and racist tones), and want the legitimacy that being aligned with the ancient See of Canterbury brings to this Province is hypocrisy. Choose, but stop the “having it both ways”, “change them” temper tantrums. We’re still a part — but what has been recognized is that we’re doing things APART from the previously (and repeatedly) stated positions. Now, we must live with the discipline resulting from the “bridge too far” choices in this Province — or get on with quitting the Communion. Then, the pews can decide where to go.

    The day of choice has arrived.

    1. Donald Philip Veitch says:
      January 15, 2016 at 1:26 pm

      Your memory of the history is good. As well as the interpretation of the factual pattern

    2. Bill Adams says:
      January 21, 2016 at 12:30 am

      Baptists can observe Anglicans. Remaining steadfast on this is more important to me than even remaining in the Communion. The “sanctioners” have excommunicated themselves from Anglicanism by the very act of sanctioning.

  4. Robert Merrill Black says:
    January 15, 2016 at 3:09 pm

    It does occur to me, upon reflection of the above, that TEC functions more like a sect. I.e., its membership is a tiny portion of its host country’s population; an important proportion of its membership is not grown but drawn from other Christian denominations; it generally can do whatever it wants without much national or denominational consequence; and it is as likely to create its justifications as it is to discover them in scripture, tradition, or (usual, common, general) reason. This is not a reproach; I admire it. It is far freer than, say the poor old Church of England. Only the fact that it is, proportionally in the Anglican Communion, so wealthy, gives one pause for reflection so that innovation by wealth is not imposed. But perhaps, indeed, it is time to proclaim that faith, the voice of the divine spirit, or the winds of the future, call it to remain faithful to its truth. It is certainly a kinder, a wiser and more generous outfit of enthusiasts than, say, that in Uganda.

  5. Stewart David Wigdor says:
    January 16, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    We are in a time when mankind feels most liberated in their sexuality. But even so can man or woman in thier highest human accolade be allowed to diminish the Holiness of the Church or the Divinity of God’s Word? The Church is a place of worship to a God that let our Lord be crucified so we would be forgiven of our sins and equally important so we could enter Heaven; even having life on earth where God dwells within us. The Anglican Communion is wrong in the severity of its judgement but is right on its understanding of the Church of Jesus Christ. Wasn’t this proven when Churches lost buildings and lands they paid for to the National Church in courts of Law because they would not recognize same sex marriage or gay or lesbian clergy? Where can a worshipper go if he has no Church on earth only to a place of prayer asking to experience his or her Lord from Heaven. If your Church is not Holy how will you want Heaven? A place of God’s Throne. In that Heaven is a royal priesthood. And that is you. You cannot destroy the sacrament of marriage nor have gay or lesbian clergy. You can love whom you want but it is Love you seek. Because you will not be ready to welcome our Lord to your Church. Find the Love that seeks God to come to you. You may be surprised.

  6. Fr Carl G Carlozzi says:
    January 17, 2016 at 10:41 pm

    Bravo to the Anglican Communion for the sanctions against us for our arrogance! I don’t agree at all with the Anglican bishops Neanderthal views…but I do commend them for sticking it to us for going out on our self-centered limb…and fun to see our limb cut off for thinking our views are the only views. Let’s face it…we are a dying denomination which will disappear like a fart in the wind!

  7. Christopher Johnson says:
    January 18, 2016 at 12:39 am

    More importantly, why hasn’t the Episcopal Church broken relations with these provinces? The Africans at least have the courage of their convictions.

  8. Ginny Berkey says:
    January 18, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    Politics even in the Church – sigh. What happened to the belief we are all God’s children and we should “love our neighbors as ourselves”? I may not agree with some choices people make, but it is not my place to judge.

  9. Spring Ryding says:
    January 21, 2016 at 7:24 pm

    I like the statement, “God isn’t finished with us yet.”

    We do need to embrace our differences and not exclude people because of differences. There is no ONE true way, but there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. There is one
    God who is father/mother of all.

  10. Igboh Victor says:
    January 22, 2016 at 3:37 am

    If the Episcopal Church is part of this Church- The Body of Christ, which Christ purchased unto Himself by His Blood, have soo deviated from the Rules stipulated by the Lord of the Church both in Her Teachings and Practices, I dont know how Jesus feels now!!!

  11. Revd. Leandro Antunes Campos says:
    January 23, 2016 at 8:26 am

    God bless the archbishop Michael Curry, God bless The Episcopal Church for their courage to witness the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for all people, in all circumstances, because we are all children of God. We will prayer for you. God bless you so much.

  12. Richard McClellan says:
    January 23, 2016 at 10:21 am

    Unfortunately, ALL churches run either from a right leading fundamentalist point of view or more of a liberal progressive stance. EVERY CHURCH. Jesus specifically never spoke of homosexual marriage or abortion yet he did speak of what God has brought together let no human dissolve. But don’t let the fundamentalists fool you. These are the same churches that openly support bigotry, genocide and war for profits all in the name of “spreading the Gospel”. I’m committed more and more, as it pertains to Christianity, to simply read the words in red and pattern my life after what they, and the ONE who uttered them, says. It’s not an easy life, but should be peaceful. As it pertains to the Sacraments, I will remain with the Episcopal Church for very personal reasons. As Jerry Springer often remarks, “Be good to yourself…and each other.”

  13. Sean Storm says:
    February 18, 2016 at 4:11 pm

    Seriously, why cannot we all just get along? The answer to the ordination of women and gay marriage seems so simple to me at least. Why cannot we, as a Communion, agree that each Province has a different “take” on certain things then other Provinces. Why cannot we simply say this…”I do not agree with what you are doing, but God bless you, I still love you, and while I don’t hold the same opinion as you do I still support you and your right ti difference. In every diocese in the Anglican Communion there are churches that are so High they remind people of the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s, and in the very same city there are churches that are so Low they seem almost like the old Methodist Church. Why cannot we all just get along together?

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