Lambeth - Press Conference on Anglican Covenant: 'We are on a pilgrimage together'

[George Conklin]

Lambeth Daily
Press Conference on Anglican Covenant: 'We are on a pilgrimage together'
Posted On : August 1, 2008 5:37 PM | Posted By : Webmaster
Related Categories: News



“I believe firmly that the Anglican Communion is 
going to continue by God’s grace and divine 
providence, but we do have problems,” observed 
Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West 
Indies and chair of the Covenant Design Group. 
“What we sought to do was find a mechanism that 
would redefine the basic tenets of Anglicanism, 
and call the members of the Communion across the 
world to rally around who we are and what we stand for.”

When disagreements arise, he noted, “we have no 
legal framework, no magisterium that says, ‘You 
have had your discussion, this is it.’” Yet he 
insisted that a covenant would not steer the 
Anglican Communion into a more legalistic 
mindset, and said that the group “did not even 
think about going a legalistic or contract route.”

Instead, he continued, “our Covenant is founded 
on a principle of mutual cooperation. We see it 
as a pilgrimage, and all Anglicans are on this 
pilgrimage. We are seeking a mechanism to ease this pilgrimage.”

All presenters agreed that at this stage in the 
design process, there is no clarity about what 
will happen to provinces who feel they cannot 
sign a Covenant, and noted that such consequences 
will be determined as the process unfolds. They 
also agreed, however, that the design group was 
not in a hurry and that it would need to allow 
time and space for provinces to reflect on how they might respond.

The Covenant Design Group will meet again at the 
end of September 2008 to review the comments of 
Lambeth Conference bishops. Provinces are to 
submit their comments by the end of March 2009 so 
that the Design Group can produce a third draft 
by April. This will be presented at the Anglican 
Consultative Council meeting in Jamaica in May 
2009. “We are trying to reflect the views of 
bishops and provinces rather than the views of the Covenant Design Group.”

Bishop Trevor Mwamba (Botswana) hopes that the 
spirit of the Covenant is one of friendship. “We 
need to discover each other and become friends,” 
he said. “You do not fear friends
But in order to 
become friends, we all need to get out of our 
boundaries - our safe zones - and explore the 
wider world out there. We often look at things or 
people beyond ourselves as threatening, as 
enemies. When we do travel to other countries or 
cultures, we often find that those people have 
the same needs and aspirations as we do. And we become friends.”

We are not seeking to create a “covenant of 
enemies with regulations and policies to penalize 
people in a state of fear,” but rather “a 
covenant of mutual respect, reverence, honor and 
cooperation.” The covenant should “enhance the 
beauty of Anglicanism” and “bring all views 
together to see what contribution they can make” 
in order to “create something eventually that 
will give life and enhance humanity.”