Anglican Church of Australia
General Synod
General Synod
Media Release
For immediate release 20 September 2010
Australian Anglicans back nationwide debate on Covenant
Australian Anglicans today agreed to an Australia-wide process for considering an international covenant designed to enhance the unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The Anglican Church of Australia’s General Synod agreed to ask all 23 dioceses to consider whether to back the Anglican Communion Covenant which aims to clarify how national members relate.
The Covenant – which is endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams – arose out of differences within in the Church in different parts of the world over human sexuality.
The decision by the Anglican Church of Australia came after Bishop Andrew Curnow of Bendigo told the Church’s supreme decision making body in Melbourne that the Church was “at a crossroad”.
Bishop Curnow asked: “Are we just going to be a series of local autonomous churches that share a common history, or are we going to be a Church that is prepared to struggle with difference but be committed to the mission that Christ has called us to?”
“We need an Anglican Covenant to understand who we are as Anglicans,” he said. “We need an Anglican Covenant to understand what we have in common and how in the future we can work together as a communion of churches.”
Adelaide Archbishop Jeffrey Driver, who proposed the national debate, emphasised that General Synod was not being asked to accept or reject the Covenant but to initiate “a process of debate and discernment” throughout the Church in Australia.
“We owe the Dioceses of our Church the opportunity to give the Covenant careful and prayerful consideration and for us to be in a position to take their counsel seriously,” he said.
Bishop Garry Weatherill of the South Australian Diocese of Willochra said he felt “incredibly ambivalent about the Covenant”.
‘I believe the Covenant as we have it now is too little, too late, too tricky and too simplistic but not simple,” he said.
Sydney priest and academic, the Revd Dr Peter Bolt, urged the Synod to reject the motion calling for a national debate saying many people around the world had already rejected the Covenant.
All Australian Dioceses are expected to comment on the Covenant by December 2012 in time for the next meeting of the Anglican Church of Australia’s national parliament in 2013.
Media contact: Leigh Arnold, General Synod Media Coordinator*
Mobile: 0428 022 270 Email: media@anglican.org.au
* Leigh Arnold is the Communications Manager with AngliCORD, an overseas relief and development agency of the Anglican Church of Australia. The Media Officers at General Synod 2010 are Michelle Low, Marketing and Communications Manager, and Lisa Cowell, Media and Public Relations Coordinator, with Benetas, an Anglican aged care provider in Melbourne and Victoria.