Dr Williams invites Dr Jefferts Schori to Primates’ Meeting
5 January, 2007
by Pat Ashworth

THE ARCHBISHOP of Canterbury has written to all the Primates of the Anglican Communion, in advance of their February meeting in Tanzania, confirming that he has invited the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA), Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, to attend.

Dr Williams acknowledges that the meeting will be “an important and difficult encounter, with several moments of discernment and decision to be faced, and a good deal of work to be done on our hopes for the Lambeth Conference, and on the nature and shape of the Covenant that we hope will assist in strengthening our unity as a Communion”.

While questions remain about ECUSA’s relations with other provinces — “though some provinces have already made their positions clear” — the Archbishop says that he does not think it wise or just to take “any action that will appear to bring that consideration, and the whole process of our shared discernment, to a premature end”.

Dr Williams believes that it is important that Dr Jefferts Schori “be given a chance both to hear and to speak, and to discuss face to face the problems we are confronting together. We are far too prone to talk about these matters from a distance, without ever having to face the human reality of those from whom we differ.” the rest at the AAC blog