Subcommittee Meeting This Afternoon

The legislative subcommittee working on the Anglican Covenant resolutions meets again this afternoon in an unscheduled meeting in about 90 minutes. It will be interesting to see whether Friday night’s testimony had much of an effect. (For those in Indianapolis, the meeting will be in room 325 in the Westin.)

The subcommittee really wants to report out a resolution that has a good chance of passage, which, their thinking seems to go, means kicking the can down the street yet again. The fear of offending others seems to be more important than showing some courage and leadership.

In light of testimony at the open hearing, Resolution D007, which was developed by the No Anglican Coalition, seems a promising consensus approach. There was also significant interest in supporting the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process. If I were running the zoo, which I clearly am not, I would report out D007, replacing the final resolve with the following:

Resolved, That the General Convention call upon the leaders of The Episcopal Church at every level to seek opportunities to reach out to strengthen and restore relationships between this church and sister churches of the Communion; to deepen The Episcopal Church’s involvement with the existing Communion ministries and networks (especially the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process); to publicize and promote this work within the dioceses of the church in order to broaden understanding of, and enthusiasm for, the Anglican Communion; and to encourage a wider understanding of, and support for, the next meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council and Lambeth Conference.

This final resolve splices the last resolve of Resolution D008 to the end of the last resolve of Resolution D007. This, I suggest, will make as many people happy as anything.

The committee may follow through on its idea of splitting apart support for the Communion and non-support (or whatever) of the Covenant. Clearly, D007 could be split along those lines. The advantage of two resolutions, of course, is that a resolution supporting the Communion will pass easily in both houses, even if nothing on the Covenant passes, which would send at least one message that needs to be sent.