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Bishops hear of hurricane aid, global partnerships

Episcopal News Service

Strides in hurricane relief, environmental protection, anti-racism initiatives and cross-cultural Anglican partnerships were priorities affirmed by the House of Bishops meeting Sept. 22-27 in the Diocese of Puerto Rico.

“Nature is producing weapons of mass destruction,” Church of Bangladesh Moderator Michael Baroi told the bishops’ regular fall meeting, pointing to the similarly devastating effects of the past year’s South Asian tsunami, flooding in India and China, typhoons in Taiwan and Gulf Coast hurricanes.

Baroi empathized with Louisiana, Mississippi and Central Gulf Coast bishops who brought the meeting first-hand accounts of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation — even as bishops of the dioceses of Texas and Western Louisiana were home bracing for Hurricane Rita’s landfall.

The bishops’ meeting — and the concurrent spouses’ gathering — rallied quickly behind the integrated long-term aid and partnership strategy presented by Episcopal Relief and Development, Episcopal Migration Ministries and the Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies, George Packard.

Further condolences and perspectives were offered by Anglican Archbishop Andrew Hutchison of Canada, Central Africa’s Archbishop Emeritus Khotso Makhulu and Bishop Michael Nutall of Southern Africa.

Bangladesh’s Baroi and Canada’s Hutchison, like Griswold, are among the Communion’s current 38 primates, or top-ranking leaders — as was Central Africa’s Makhulu before his retirement.

Each praised U.S. bishops who, earlier in the meeting, described the welcome they received in Africa during recent medical-mission and poverty-relief visits. “They need your care and love,” Baroi said. “Go a mile to see that this communion is not broken; this is a gift to us from God.”

Respecting diversity

Baroi said the communion shared by Anglicans remains broad enough to include respectful disagreements. He said his views of human sexuality differ from those that affirm an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire and the blessing of same-sex unions in the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster. “I disagree with you,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I have no respect for you. I have every respect for you.”

Southern Africa’s Nutall and Central Africa’s Makhulu echoed themes of forbearance and reconciliation, speaking from more than 40 years’ experience with the effects and dismantling of apartheid. Makhulu said the Anglican Communion “is living a number of inconsistencies,” specifying that “it is not so long ago when divorces were dealt with in a legalistic manner...that opposition to the ordination of women was justified on the grounds that it conflicted with Paul’s view of headship...that the Lambeth Conference of 1988 gave a pastoral report on polygamy; I would be interested to know how those who take a literal view of scripture square their agreement to this...and now sexual orientation is generating a lot of heat with vehement denials out of Africa; South Africa is quite open about it whilst other people in other parts of Africa are obliged to live in a clandestine manner.”

The bishops applauded Makhulu’s conclusion that ways forward are being achieved as “despite underlying difficulties some of you have taken it upon yourselves to seek each other out, to engage in face-to-face discussion in the search for reconciliation and willingness to continue to struggle together.”

Those discussions include recent gatherings in Los Angeles and St. Louis where groups of bishops of diverse opinions met to build upon conversations begun last March at the House of Bishops’ meeting at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas.

Engaging Windsor Report

Reports to the House included an overview, provided by New York Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam, of last June’s Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting in Nottingham, England. The bishops responded by commending the Episcopal Church’s presentation to the ACC, “To Set Our Hope on Christ.”

The bishops further affirmed that they “continue to encourage the Church to read and discuss the Windsor Report, and will re-engage our own conversation about this report at our meeting in March of 2006.”

This affirmation followed an independent statement issued Sept. 26 by 30 bishops, including seven retired, who also affirmed the Windsor Report and their support for the Anglican Communion and the See of Canterbury.

The meeting included several informal caucus sessions, including talks on how to support the exchange of information and report texts among bishops between House meetings, and how best to provide resources to address property disputes.

The House of Bishops’ next meeting is its annual retreat gathering set for March 17-22, 2006 at the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, N.C., followed by sessions June 13-21 when General Convention meets in Columbus, Ohio.

More information on the meeting is at www.episcopalchurch.org/ens.