A Protest against the New Primatial Standing Committee

The recent election of Katharine Jefferts Schori to the Primates’ Standing Committee is a matter of considerable shock and disappointment. For some, it is a matter of outrage, and not unfairly so. Her election is perhaps the most destructive decision that could have been made by the Primates who recently gathered in Dublin. Schori has repeatedly refused to lead the American Episcopal Church in observance of the moratoria called for by the Windsor Report, and she has done nothing to ameliorate the difficult conditions faced by many faithful Anglicans within the American province. Indeed, these already difficult conditions have acutely worsened under her primacy, and membership decline in the Episcopal Church has only continued unabated. How then can she be elected in good faith?

We do well to consider that this is not a question that must be answered by the Archbishop of Canterbury alone. Rather, it is a question that must be answered by the Primates as a whole – and not just those who assembled in Dublin, but those who were absent for any reason at all. Many forget this; too many are quick to assume that everything that happens in the Anglican Communion rests solely on the shoulders of the See of Canterbury, and too many are also quick to assume that non-attendance is somehow a badge of virtue. Both assumptions are wrong. The Primates’ Standing Committee is the responsibility of the Primates as a single Instrument of Unity and its composition is the product of what the Primates, as a whole, decide. Thus it is the corporate body of Primates who must explain their decision.

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This is what the Primates ought to do. But I do not see them doing it.