Centralise power and enforce the rules

[Formatting Revised 10/2/09]

The agenda for the Anglican Communion: centralise power and enforce the rules.

The Windsor Continuation Group, with the assent of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates, is writing the future of the Anglican Covenant.

If the teeth have, possibly, been drawn from the Covenant then it is merely so that they can be fitted in elsewhere.

Goal:

To give decisions and recommendations of the central agencies of the Communion authority and force.

Principles:

1) Change the relationships between Provinces. Instead of a network of autonomous Provinces choosing to share ecclesial life together there will be central decision making bodies, of which the Provinces will be part.

'The need for a shift of focus in the life of the communion from autonomy of provinces with communion added on, to communion as the primary reality with autonomy and accountability understood within that framework.' [The Archbishop of Canterbury, final press briefing after the Primates’ meeting, 5/2/09.]

2) Create a constitution for all the international organs of the Anglican Communion.

A set or [of] recommendations about the instruments of communion and how they should work. All four; the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates Meeting, The Anglican Consultative Council and the Lambeth Conference need some looking at as to whether their present structures of working are adequate to the situation. [The Archbishop of Canterbury, final press briefing after the Primates’ meeting, 5/2/09.]

3) Concentrate decision making in international bodies.

Subsidiarity (in the Windsor report but missing from the Nassau and St Andrews’ drafts) will need to be revisited. [The Windsor Continuation Group Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury, §50.]

4) Resolve ambiguity about the nature and expression of episcopacy [The Windsor Continuation Group Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury, §§60, 61.]

Mechanism:

Provinces will be asked to make voluntary submission to the Covenant and thence to constitutional revision.

No Province will be instructed or directed to take any step at all. Therefore there will be few legal problems in any jurisdiction. Each Province will have voluntarily entered into a revised relationship with other Provinces, determined in accordance with their own internal decision making structures.

Each Province will be invited to internalise global jurisdiction over it by progressively adopting common canon law and appointing compliance officers.

These proposals were key aspects of the draft Covenant in the Windsor Report. [The Windsor Report, §113 and Appendix 2 Article 25].

Interim steps:

The Windsor Continuation Group maintains an overview of all developments and, in close liaison with the Archbishop of Canterbury, is the key co-ordinating body

Pastoral arrangements and structures for mediation are needed now to address areas of particular tensions within the Anglican Communion. [The Windsor Continuation Group Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury, §81-91.]

Advisory commissions can continue the constitutional work [The Windsor Continuation Group Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury, §80]. In particular

• A hermeneutics project – The Bible in the Church.


• IASCUFO (The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission for Unity, Faith and Order) is asked to prepare an urgent statement on the Instruments of Communion for consultation, if possible in time for incorporation into subsequent drafts of the Covenant. [The Windsor Continuation Group Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury, §76.]
  
• The Principles of Canon Law Project to further the creation of a common canon law across the Communion.

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