Here is the link to the just released statement of ++Rowan Williams to the Church of England’s General Synod. Rowan seems a bit annoyed. He comments on the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, his Reflection statement and how some have interpreted (or misinterpreted) his statements, and with regard to the troubles the Communion is now facing. Hat tip to Titusonenine.
One poignant paragraph on the professed Catholic nature of Anglicanism:
The real agenda – and it bears on other matters we have to discuss at this Synod – is what our doctrine of the Church really is in relation to the whole deposit of our faith. Christian history gives us examples of theologies of the Church based upon local congregational integrity, with little or no superstructure – Baptist and Congregationalist theologies; and of theologies of the national Church, working in symbiosis with culture and government – as in some Lutheran settings. We have often come near the second in theory and the first in practice. But that is not where we have seen our true centre and character. We have claimed to be Catholic, to have a ministry that is capable of being universally recognised (even where in practice it does not have that recognition) because of its theological and institutional continuity; to hold a faith that is not locally determined but shared through time and space with the fellowship of the baptised; to celebrate sacraments that express the reality of a community which is more than the people present at any one moment with any one set of concerns. So at the very least we must recognise that Anglicanism as we have experienced it has never been just a loose grouping of people who care to describe themselves as Anglicans but enjoy unconfined local liberties. Argue for this if you will, but recognise that it represents something other than the tradition we have received and been nourished by in God’s providence. And only if we can articulate some coherent core for this tradition in present practice can we continue to engage plausibly in any kind of ecumenical endeavour, local or international.