The Joint Standing Committee of the Primates of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Consultative Council met February 29-March 4 in London. There were a variety of ENS articles on the meeting, but no minutes. I can't find any reference to the JSC Meeting on the Anglican Communion website, save for a reference to an article in Anglican / Episcopal World for April, 2008.
Among the summary statements was this:
"Constitutional Reform:
That the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Consultative Council
1. notes the Report of the Legal Advisor
2. notes that arising from Resolutions of ACC-13 the Primates Meeting has welcomed and supported
(a) the proposed change of constitutional format to that of a charitable company and
(b) the proposed inclusion of five Primates appointed by the Primates Meeting as members of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and as ex-officio members of the Council
3. notes and endorses the proposed new Constitution presented at this meeting, including (a) and (b) above
4. requests the Secretary General to forward the proposed new Constitution together with an explanatory memorandum (prepared in conjunction with the Legal Advisor) to all Provinces seeking their ratification."
So a new constitution has been formally presented to the JSC, with the request that the Secretary General forward it to all Provinces seeking their ratification. If the secretariat gets on the ball I guess that means that we should have it in time for discussion at the next General Convention in 2009.
The effort to include in the ACC five members of the Primates is questionable at best. This has been in the works for a while, but the idea doesn't get any better.
I will be interested to see what changes in the constitution are required to make the ACC a "charitable company."
Where is the "proposed new Constitution"? When will any of us get to see it?
Institutionalizing Nottingham. Resolution 4: Constitutional Change (in the light of the Windsor Report reads: "The Anglican Consultative Council
ReplyDeletea. takes note that the Secretary General has taken appropriate steps to implement and respond to the recommendations of Appendix One of the Windsor Report insofar as they relate to the administration of the Anglican Communion Office, and thanks him for this work
b. requests that the Standing Committee of the Council and the Archbishop of Canterbury give consideration to convening a meeting of the Standing Committee at the same time and in the same place as the next meeting of the Primates, and that they facilitate the opportunity for joint sessions of business and consultation
c. requests that the Schedule of Membership of the Council be amended to make the members of the Primates’ Standing Committee for the time being ex officio members of the Anglican Consultative Council in accordance with the text set out in Appendix One"
By contrast, the resolution emerging from Nottingham, a meeting from which the Canadians and Americans had voluntarily absented themselves from voting reads:
"The Schedule of Membership shall be amended by adding the new category:
“(e) Ex officio members
Five members of the body known as the Standing Committee of the Primates of the Anglican Communion in each case for so long as they shall remain members of such Standing Committee.”
This resolution makes no reference to a time limitation. By contrast, the actions now proposed are intended to make the modifications permanent. Given that Canada and the US will rejoin the ACC as full voting partners after Lambeth, it would seem that an effort is being made to impose this resolution, adopted only in their absence and originally proposed as temporary, before they are able to oppose it. EPfizH
EPfizH--
ReplyDeleteI think the phrase you have bolded in the first quotation ("for the time being") is being translated in the second one as "for so long as they shall remain members of such Standing Committee": that is, "for the time being" describes the members, not the arrangements.