The stronger challenge of unity” “

Responsible dedication to social work as missionary activity of the Church and ecumenism were the main issues discussed during the general Synod of the Anglican Church, held in the archdiocese of York from 11 to 15 July. The meeting was preceded by a series of tensions between the more innovative wing of the Anglican Church (in which many tend to place the archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams himself) and the more conservative wing (the so-called “evangelicals”). The friction between the two wings became exacerbated in early June following the nomination as bishop of Reading of Canon Jeffrey John, a self-declared “gay”. He was forced to resign the post on 6 July. Appeal to unity. The archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams did not fail to reflect, in his speech to Synod, on the sufferings of a Church divided by differences of opinion. His main message was the need to seek “unity” and not an “insignificant unanimity”. This appeal was all the more necessary, he said, at a turbulent time for the “internal” affairs of the Anglican Church and for its “relations” with the sister Methodist Church. An ecumenical step of great importance was the approval of the Anglican/Methodist covenant, aimed at reinforcing a partnership that began several years ago. “Accepting unity” – Williams continued – does not mean “denying conflict”. Nor “must we delude ourselves into thinking” that it will be easy to fulfil this “challenge” that acquires a stronger value just at a time when “all around people are vociferously demanding separation”. The “unity of the Gospel – insisted Williams – is all the more imperative, the more difficult we find it”. Does the “Church of England” exist? That’s the provocative question posed by Williams, according to whom the current internal divisions give the impression that “various ‘Churches of England’ exist”. Williams then described the current situation of the Anglican Church as a “soap opera”, remote from the “real life of people”. This community that privileges “indirect communication” and in which “each person believes himself to be a persecuted minority”, he added, “is not a real people’s Church”. To escape from this “blind alley”, Williams urged that Anglicans rediscover “what it is that makes us a Church”, even before defining it as “Church of England”. “The life of the Church – he stressed – is developed the moment we begin to work in a slow and clumsy way on the ways that will lead us to recognize each other, because called by the same God and Saviour”. New “styles of Church”. Another thorny issue on the agenda: research on human embryos. The report presented by the Church’s mission and public affairs Division recalled the variety of points of view of Christians on this issue and encouraged the Anglican Church to continue its efforts with the Government and other bodies to clarify the ethical questions posed by such research. The archbishop of Canterbury then invited the Church to adapt to a “mixed economy”, recognizing the Church wherever is appears and having the will and the capacity to work together”. This is the meaning of “mission”, he explained. He urged Anglicans to look to a “Church with deep human and theological roots”, whose “solidity” derives from “existing, through God, in Christ”. Altogether – in the spirit of flexibility of the Synod itself, in the reports presented by the bishops, in the emergence of “new styles of Church”, and in the daily commitment of believers in the social field – Williams detected, in spite of the controversies, a “moment of great promise”. “I hope – he concluded – that the Synod may raise its eyes for a moment from the traumas of recent weeks and days, not to pretend to forget, but to be once again conscious of what God is doing in our Church”.