Sudanese Bishop Explains Release of Letters

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2008/7/23/sudanese-bishop-explains-release-of-letters

[The Living Church] 24 Jul 2008--Members of the House of Bishops of The Church of the Sudan knew that The Episcopal Church would attempt to make the exclusion of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire an issue at the Lambeth Conference, and so they prepared the two letters released yesterday before they departed for the England.

“This was our unanimous position that we agreed to,” said the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Mangar Mamur, Bishop of Yirol. As to the timing of their release, he said the Sudanese bishops left that decision to their primate, Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams acknowledged receiving the letters before they were released, but they came as a surprise to a number of other African bishops. Bishop Mangar said the letters, especially the one on human sexuality, were not meant to be hurtful. Instead they were intended as a plea to come back to the fold from one group of Christians to another.

Bishop Mangar said he has not yet received an invitation to the wine and cheese party on Saturday night organized by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

“If other Christians, including the Presiding Bishop of America, want us as Christian brothers to come and explain why our position is like that, or if Archbishop Daniel asks me to come, I will go,” he said. However, if Bishop Robinson attends, Bishop Mangar said he would be unwilling to be present, even if his primate asks him to go.