Monday, September 15, 2008

Bishop Venables: Canadian Primate’s Proposal a ‘Publicity Stunt’

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2008/9/12/bishop-venables-canadian-primates-proposal-a-publicity-stunt

[The Living Church] 15 Sep 2008--Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, expressed dismay and suspicion after Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of Canada, went public with his request for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to convene a meeting to discuss cross-border incursions.

In an interview published Sept. 10 by the Anglican Journal of Canada, Archbishop Hiltz said he had requested that Archbishop Williams convene a meeting with Bishop Venables, himself, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Archbishop Mauricio de Andrade, primate of Brazil.

“I talked to Fred about this at Lambeth, but it never occurred to me that a private discussion would become public without us both agreeing first,” Bishop Venables told The Living Church. “It looks more like a publicity stunt than a serious desire for dialogue.

“What more is there to discuss? I told him why I was doing this and he told me how he felt about it,” Bishop Venables said. “Boundary crossing is not the primary issue. It is a secondary issue resulting from the communion-splitting action of blessing sexual sin by the U.S. and Canadian churches.”

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