Gracious Restraint!!!!!!

The meeting was much as I feared.
Archbishop Aspinall began by describing the General Convention of the Episcopal Church at which he was an observer for its first week.  Many were astounded at the size of the proceedings but having read about it at the time on many of the blogs on my list, there was nothing new in that for me. I have also attended a number of Librarian Conventions in the USA and know how they compare in size with those here in Australia.
The Archbishop  perhaps wistfully mentioned that each of the 110 dioceses has the same number of delegates irrespective of size. In Australia, General Synod is made up of representatives from each of the twenty three dioceses on a proportional basis according to the number of active clergy in each diocese. This gives the Sydney Diocese a very large number of representatives. 


He then outlined Resolutions C056 and D025 and stressed they did not rescind B033 although he described the media frenzy that resulted from their passing as being unfortunate and criticised the press releases of the President of the House of Deputies and the Presiding Bishop as being "too little, too late".

He described a long list (8?) of  the problems with the Covenant which had me feeling hopeful  until he followed with a similar list of the potential benefits.


What most annoyed me was his assertion that there needed to be more discussion of the theological and Biblical aspects of the position of committed homosexual partnerships. Although he acknowledged this had been happening for at least 40 years in the USA, it had not occurred in Australia. Yet he had no idea of what had happened in individual dioceses as a result of the few papers that had been prepared and distributed. He admitted that the Australian church lacked mechanisms for interchange of ideas. The national webpage is pathetic(my description) and the national paper is defunct. 


The Australian General Synod and the Primate do not have the powers of their counterparts in TEC. As the website states:

Although the Anglican Church of Australia is one church its structure means that political control is vested in the dioceses and the parishes rather than held centrally by the General Synod. ..... Any rule involving a matter which could affect a diocese must be adopted by the dioceses.

The diocese is the basic unit of the Australian church. .....  this bottom up structure means that the Primate, the Archbishop or the General Synod have only limited authority to speak on behalf of the church. Consequently, the church is often criticised for not being able to respond quickly enough to changing political or legal situations.  When it tries to address these situations, the Church seems rarely capable of speaking with a single voice. 

Archbishop Aspinall is a reasonable man but he seems to believe that he is dealing with reasonable men and that continued dialogue will see the church come to know the mind of God. 
If I had been acknowledged (I did put my hand up),  I would have declared that those who run the Diocese of Sydney will never join in reasonable discussion. As I stated in my previous post, women were ordained to the priesthood in Australia 15 years after New Zealand and only after those opposed had tried to prevent it in the courts of the land and failed. 


A priest, in a question, referred to understanding the Love of God but Aspinall countered with words that might have come from the evangelicals that we also need to understand what is sin. I believe he was just putting the case to be fair but was still sad to hear him say it. 

One man outed himself as a homosexual and made an impassioned plea for the hypocrisy to end. He declared that homosexuals, both out and closeted, are being ordained in every diocese in the land except Sydney and Armidale (I would add North West Australia). He later listed some examples to me in a private conversation.  He claimed that the battle over women priests had ended (this brought howls from women in particular, because it has not ended in the Sydney Diocese) and eventually must end over homosexuality. He is an out gay principal in a State school and there are no problems. The church is lagging way behind the times. 


Archbishop Aspinall stated he would not reply to that but allow the man's speech to stand. He also told us how he had breakfasted at the convention with a partnered lesbian rector from Chicago whose parish was supporting 2 clergy in the Diocese of the Sudan despite the regular criticisms from the Archbishop of the Sudan of TEC.  Aspinall several times commented on the resolve by TEC to reaffirm its financial commitment to the Anglican communion.


The meeting was arranged by Anglicans Together which is an organisation of Anglicans in the Diocese of Sydney which values an inclusive and diverse expression of Anglicanism. The Archbishop told us he read the newsletters and he encouraged us to meet and support one another.

So I believe as I did before the meeting that Archbishop Aspinall would like to be more openly supportive but  feels restricted by the role of Primate which has little real power and also by his belief that the church will move to find the will of God by continued prayer and discussion. As a person who is affected by the process I believe in a little more activism than he would prefer. 


General Synod dithered for years over the ordination of women and it was only after the then Archbishop of Perth (later Primate) and the Bishop of Canberra-Goulburn took matters into their own hands, withstood the legal attacks and ordained the first women that the General Synod finally decided in their favour. 


The Sydney evangelicals never forgave either bishop and treated Archbishop Peter Carnley with outride rudeness when he became Primate. They are not reasonable men and will never listen to reasonable discussion, Stuff em.