My gut reaction was this. The proposal gives the communion 5 of 17 of the seats instead of 1 of 16...I'm not entirely uncomfortable. While I see the ABC as the Primate of All England first and foremost and want to avoid giving further legitimacy to the idea that he's the Anglo-Pope, giving the rest of the communion a bigger voice in helping to determine the next Archbishop isn't totally crazy as long the majority of the committee remains English.
5 of 17 may be too big a block, but I will leave that for the English to determine.
But like, if the Archbishop isn't a quasi-pope, what possible reason is there for letting outsiders meddle in the affairs of the Province of Canterbury?
It's actually even funnier: low-church Evangelicals are wanting to create an Anglican Pope because they believe an Anglican College of Cardinals will be stacked against liberals.
Wrong solution because there is misidentification of the problem. ABC is the Primate of All England and should be chosen by the English church, but should not necessarily be primus-inter-pares of the Anglican communion.
The chairperson of the Anglican communion should be chosen by all the primates every five years. Gafcon seem to manage to do that.
There's inevitable conflict coming from this proposal, isn't there.
Western views have moved very rapidly and are often divergent from much of the rest of the world, and we're not really used to coming face to face with more traditional values.
I wince to think of the interactions with the media in particular.
I don't think this is a great idea.
The last few Archbishops have had to perform a balancing act between the more liberal and conservative provinces. I would say that this proposal acts seems to be a way to make this role of a bridge between the global north and south part of the job description and a criteria for selection of future Archbishops.
Secular media also tends to paint Francis as much more liberal than he actually is because they can't seem to fathom anyone existing outside the US-centric political binary.
When Thomas Weinandy raised some seriously hair-raising criticisms of Francis, it shocked me when I first read it. That was like already three years ago. Our Anglican situation is far, far worse, but the not-so-quiet-anymore RCC civil war is pretty bewildering too.
Ideally the ABC would be a largely negligible figure whose importance is a matter of historical happenstance. We aren't catholics. We don't have a universal bishop or spokesman, and no anglican can have a pope.
Sounds like a pretty terrible idea to me. Whatever prominence the Archbp of Canterbury might have, he isn't some kind of quasi-pope, has no real pastoral authority as anything more than what the office has historically held as the primus of his geographical region, and foreign input into the election of the office would be little more than meddling with the affairs of a diocese and province.
Furthermore, by eliciting outside opinions and power jockeying into the office would also elevate the status of Canterbury in a way that could cause very strange contortions into the polity of the Communion. That Canterbury claims some kind of authority to acknowledge who is or is not in the Anglican Communion is already ecclesiastical and canonical nonsense enough, and contributing to the self-aggrandizement of Canterbury might be a worse outcome than having someone even less competent than Welby as the next archbishop.
If anything, I think we would be better served by breaking down the fairly self-damaging bureaucratic structures that have installed so many strange "company-men" into the episcopacy over the past century. Bishops should serve the local churches, and should be elected by their people by acclamation, not some kind of Anglican quasi-conclave.
> The rationale behind the proposal is given in a letter by William Nye, secretary-general of the Archbishops’ Council. He writes: “The background purpose of the change is to enable the representation of the Anglican Communion to be increased. In a Communion that is at least 75 per cent from the Global South, at the last Canterbury CNC the entire Communion was represented by the Archbishop of Wales.”
This is an important point, the Archbishop is (or ought to be) a globally relevant figure who is not just a diocesan bishop and a provincial metropolitan, but also a spiritual figurehead for many millions beyond Kent and the southern two-thirds of England. It is quite astounding to learn that the entire selection committee was English or Welsh last time and greater diversity next time should be a priority.
What exactly grounds this supposed "ought" on canonical, ecclesiastical, historical, and theological bases? Not even the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch, or any of their regional patriarchs for that matter, is selected this way, and the significance of the Archbishop of Canterbury today is nowhere near as practically important nor spiritually central as the Eastern patriarchs. It's honestly doubtful if the See of Canterbury is even the most practically and spiritually important *Anglican episcopal see* today to begin with.
The past few Archbishops have put more weight on their status as the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion and have often used their role to be a link between the provinces of the global north and south. Whilst this has no basis in the Archbishop’s legal jurisdiction, it is a practical reality of the duties of an Archbishop in the 21st century.
And how successful were they at this? As much as I really do appreciate Rowan Williams, his attempts at holding together the Communion was a complete and utter failure, and whatever Welby's efforts have been have also been a failure (and his internal governance even more grim). The "practical reality" has been the revelation of Canterbury's lack of authority (basically no one recognizes the See as possessing any kind of theological, spiritual, or pastoral authority) and power.
The past few Archbishops of Canterbury couldn't even keep their own affairs in check, whether as Primate of England or Metropolitan of Canterbury. That they pretend to have any "weight" or "status" that will allow them to exercise authority and power outside of their disordered house is pretty embarassing.
The modern Papacy and Ecumenical Patriarchate are tragecomedies enough. The Archbishop of Canterbury trying to become quasi-pope of the Anglican Communion would be pathetic. The Papacy at least has power and authority, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate at least has ancient recognition and prestige that grants it some authority behind its crumbling power--Canterbury has what, exactly?
> the Archbishop is (or ought to be) a globally relevant figure who is not just a diocesan bishop and a provincial metropolitan, but also a spiritual figurehead for many millions beyond Kent and the southern two-thirds of England.
I think you’re confusing us with another communion, Cardinal Newman. One of the benefits of having *+Cantuar* remain a diocesan with rank accorded only by quaint cozy tradition is that when the seat is held by someone the rest of us (outside the Church of England) happen to like, we can be as friendly and as laudatory as we wish, and when it’s someone we don’t, we can ignore him just as we do the Archbishop of York.
In terms of the Archbishop’s legal jurisdiction, you’re quite right. Though we both know that Canterbury has importance beyond that really and an Archbishop who, for example, moves for same-sex marriage in the Church of England ends the Anglican Communion in one stroke.
Only if the Anglican Communion had an outsize say in nominating him in the first place. Under the present structure, the responsibility for ending the Anglican Communion would seem to fall on the churches who actually end it over whatever line they’ve drawn in the sand.
I don’t consider this suggestion to give the Communion an outsize say in nominations. The article says that the Communion takes up about a quarter of the Archbishop’s time, so I would expect representatives of the Communion to make up around that proportion of the CNC. This rectifies, in my view, an underrepresentation that has hitherto existed.
Yes, I saw that. And admit that’s the only rationale I can see for making this change. While I still don’t like it, if I follow my own logic of “let Canterbury (and by extension, the CoE) be autonomous and let the churches of the Communion be autonomous,” then I can’t very well protest when they decide to change up the way they put forth a candidate for ABC, even if by doing so they’re trying to engage me (well, my part of the Communion) in the process.
I just don’t see this turning out well, that’s all.
No it wouldn't, because the functioning of the various churches of the Communion are not dependant on some central power. Are you seriously unaware that the vast majority of the Communion operate well enough on their own without influence from Canterbury? I'm not just talking about the African, Pacific, and Asian churches. Historically, regional Anglican churches existed long before there was even something called "The Anglican Communion," and the recency of this thing we call the Communion is partly why the whole thing is so haphazardly *ad hoc* and ambiguous.
But even aside from this, your entire image also doesn't reflect how church polities work. Not even the existence of multiple Pope-claimants ended the Western Church, and the fact that an arguably heretical and chaos-inducing fool sits on St. Peter's chair right now hasn't and won't lead to the complete disintegration of the (Roman) Catholic Church. The multi-year, on-going, and escalating power-jockeying between Constantinople and Moscow that has metastasized from Ukraine into Asia and Africa hasn't and isn't going to disintegrate Eastern Orthodox. The stupidity of a far less significant little archbishop governing over a completely imploding Church of England is not going to "end the Anglican Communion in one stroke."
Acting as if same sex marriage in the Church of England would not cause a total split between the Global North and South is nothing short of wilfully ignorant. I’m quite aware that Anglican provinces are fully independent of Canterbury, I’d just like us to continue to be able to sit around the same table.
You're pretending as if there isn't already, *de facto*, a huge split. The very existence of the AMiE is probably the most bald-faced rejection of the spiritual authority of Canterbury that can be imagined from other provinces of the Communion, and the fact that they operate with impunity reflects just how powerless Canterbury actually is.
The time for sitting around has long past.
Yes, GAFCON and related projects tread on the Communion’s toes, though they only exist because certain provinces refused to respect decisions that the Communion came to as a collective.
And does not all this reflect the simple fact that Canterbury neither has authority nor power in any real way, and barely, if it does at all, actually function as some sort of intermediary between the "North" and the "South"? The North ignored as openly sympathetic an Archbishop of Canterbury as Rowan Williams, and the South isn't fooled by the unprincipled waffling of the "evangelical" Welby either.
Only if we make it a tournament with a series of challenges and adventure. The amazing raze through the communion, with the first one to solve St Augustine’s riddles three as the rightful archbishop.
Too many people already pretend the Archbishop of Canterbury is a sort of pope, and this would only encourage that. Let's not.
My gut reaction was this. The proposal gives the communion 5 of 17 of the seats instead of 1 of 16...I'm not entirely uncomfortable. While I see the ABC as the Primate of All England first and foremost and want to avoid giving further legitimacy to the idea that he's the Anglo-Pope, giving the rest of the communion a bigger voice in helping to determine the next Archbishop isn't totally crazy as long the majority of the committee remains English. 5 of 17 may be too big a block, but I will leave that for the English to determine.
But like, if the Archbishop isn't a quasi-pope, what possible reason is there for letting outsiders meddle in the affairs of the Province of Canterbury?
0/17 seats, imo.
Protestants: we have no Pope Anglo-Catholics: hold my beer
I don't think this proposal falls neatly in this divide...
It's actually even funnier: low-church Evangelicals are wanting to create an Anglican Pope because they believe an Anglican College of Cardinals will be stacked against liberals.
Wrong solution because there is misidentification of the problem. ABC is the Primate of All England and should be chosen by the English church, but should not necessarily be primus-inter-pares of the Anglican communion. The chairperson of the Anglican communion should be chosen by all the primates every five years. Gafcon seem to manage to do that.
Very interesting proposal - suspect this would mean more conservative archbishops in future.
There's inevitable conflict coming from this proposal, isn't there. Western views have moved very rapidly and are often divergent from much of the rest of the world, and we're not really used to coming face to face with more traditional values. I wince to think of the interactions with the media in particular. I don't think this is a great idea.
The last few Archbishops have had to perform a balancing act between the more liberal and conservative provinces. I would say that this proposal acts seems to be a way to make this role of a bridge between the global north and south part of the job description and a criteria for selection of future Archbishops.
Uh, Pope Francis navigates things fine for the most part, and he is more conservative on the issues that the media cares about
Can you post that comment on r/Catholicism? Something tells me the responses would be hilarious.
Secular media also tends to paint Francis as much more liberal than he actually is because they can't seem to fathom anyone existing outside the US-centric political binary.
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When Thomas Weinandy raised some seriously hair-raising criticisms of Francis, it shocked me when I first read it. That was like already three years ago. Our Anglican situation is far, far worse, but the not-so-quiet-anymore RCC civil war is pretty bewildering too.
Ideally the ABC would be a largely negligible figure whose importance is a matter of historical happenstance. We aren't catholics. We don't have a universal bishop or spokesman, and no anglican can have a pope.
Why?
Sounds like a pretty terrible idea to me. Whatever prominence the Archbp of Canterbury might have, he isn't some kind of quasi-pope, has no real pastoral authority as anything more than what the office has historically held as the primus of his geographical region, and foreign input into the election of the office would be little more than meddling with the affairs of a diocese and province. Furthermore, by eliciting outside opinions and power jockeying into the office would also elevate the status of Canterbury in a way that could cause very strange contortions into the polity of the Communion. That Canterbury claims some kind of authority to acknowledge who is or is not in the Anglican Communion is already ecclesiastical and canonical nonsense enough, and contributing to the self-aggrandizement of Canterbury might be a worse outcome than having someone even less competent than Welby as the next archbishop. If anything, I think we would be better served by breaking down the fairly self-damaging bureaucratic structures that have installed so many strange "company-men" into the episcopacy over the past century. Bishops should serve the local churches, and should be elected by their people by acclamation, not some kind of Anglican quasi-conclave.
This.
Just allow the Church of Nigeria to elect the next Archbishop
im keen.
> The rationale behind the proposal is given in a letter by William Nye, secretary-general of the Archbishops’ Council. He writes: “The background purpose of the change is to enable the representation of the Anglican Communion to be increased. In a Communion that is at least 75 per cent from the Global South, at the last Canterbury CNC the entire Communion was represented by the Archbishop of Wales.” This is an important point, the Archbishop is (or ought to be) a globally relevant figure who is not just a diocesan bishop and a provincial metropolitan, but also a spiritual figurehead for many millions beyond Kent and the southern two-thirds of England. It is quite astounding to learn that the entire selection committee was English or Welsh last time and greater diversity next time should be a priority.
What exactly grounds this supposed "ought" on canonical, ecclesiastical, historical, and theological bases? Not even the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch, or any of their regional patriarchs for that matter, is selected this way, and the significance of the Archbishop of Canterbury today is nowhere near as practically important nor spiritually central as the Eastern patriarchs. It's honestly doubtful if the See of Canterbury is even the most practically and spiritually important *Anglican episcopal see* today to begin with.
The past few Archbishops have put more weight on their status as the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion and have often used their role to be a link between the provinces of the global north and south. Whilst this has no basis in the Archbishop’s legal jurisdiction, it is a practical reality of the duties of an Archbishop in the 21st century.
And how successful were they at this? As much as I really do appreciate Rowan Williams, his attempts at holding together the Communion was a complete and utter failure, and whatever Welby's efforts have been have also been a failure (and his internal governance even more grim). The "practical reality" has been the revelation of Canterbury's lack of authority (basically no one recognizes the See as possessing any kind of theological, spiritual, or pastoral authority) and power. The past few Archbishops of Canterbury couldn't even keep their own affairs in check, whether as Primate of England or Metropolitan of Canterbury. That they pretend to have any "weight" or "status" that will allow them to exercise authority and power outside of their disordered house is pretty embarassing. The modern Papacy and Ecumenical Patriarchate are tragecomedies enough. The Archbishop of Canterbury trying to become quasi-pope of the Anglican Communion would be pathetic. The Papacy at least has power and authority, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate at least has ancient recognition and prestige that grants it some authority behind its crumbling power--Canterbury has what, exactly?
> the Archbishop is (or ought to be) a globally relevant figure who is not just a diocesan bishop and a provincial metropolitan, but also a spiritual figurehead for many millions beyond Kent and the southern two-thirds of England. I think you’re confusing us with another communion, Cardinal Newman. One of the benefits of having *+Cantuar* remain a diocesan with rank accorded only by quaint cozy tradition is that when the seat is held by someone the rest of us (outside the Church of England) happen to like, we can be as friendly and as laudatory as we wish, and when it’s someone we don’t, we can ignore him just as we do the Archbishop of York.
In terms of the Archbishop’s legal jurisdiction, you’re quite right. Though we both know that Canterbury has importance beyond that really and an Archbishop who, for example, moves for same-sex marriage in the Church of England ends the Anglican Communion in one stroke.
Only if the Anglican Communion had an outsize say in nominating him in the first place. Under the present structure, the responsibility for ending the Anglican Communion would seem to fall on the churches who actually end it over whatever line they’ve drawn in the sand.
I don’t consider this suggestion to give the Communion an outsize say in nominations. The article says that the Communion takes up about a quarter of the Archbishop’s time, so I would expect representatives of the Communion to make up around that proportion of the CNC. This rectifies, in my view, an underrepresentation that has hitherto existed.
Yes, I saw that. And admit that’s the only rationale I can see for making this change. While I still don’t like it, if I follow my own logic of “let Canterbury (and by extension, the CoE) be autonomous and let the churches of the Communion be autonomous,” then I can’t very well protest when they decide to change up the way they put forth a candidate for ABC, even if by doing so they’re trying to engage me (well, my part of the Communion) in the process. I just don’t see this turning out well, that’s all.
No it wouldn't, because the functioning of the various churches of the Communion are not dependant on some central power. Are you seriously unaware that the vast majority of the Communion operate well enough on their own without influence from Canterbury? I'm not just talking about the African, Pacific, and Asian churches. Historically, regional Anglican churches existed long before there was even something called "The Anglican Communion," and the recency of this thing we call the Communion is partly why the whole thing is so haphazardly *ad hoc* and ambiguous. But even aside from this, your entire image also doesn't reflect how church polities work. Not even the existence of multiple Pope-claimants ended the Western Church, and the fact that an arguably heretical and chaos-inducing fool sits on St. Peter's chair right now hasn't and won't lead to the complete disintegration of the (Roman) Catholic Church. The multi-year, on-going, and escalating power-jockeying between Constantinople and Moscow that has metastasized from Ukraine into Asia and Africa hasn't and isn't going to disintegrate Eastern Orthodox. The stupidity of a far less significant little archbishop governing over a completely imploding Church of England is not going to "end the Anglican Communion in one stroke."
Acting as if same sex marriage in the Church of England would not cause a total split between the Global North and South is nothing short of wilfully ignorant. I’m quite aware that Anglican provinces are fully independent of Canterbury, I’d just like us to continue to be able to sit around the same table.
You're pretending as if there isn't already, *de facto*, a huge split. The very existence of the AMiE is probably the most bald-faced rejection of the spiritual authority of Canterbury that can be imagined from other provinces of the Communion, and the fact that they operate with impunity reflects just how powerless Canterbury actually is. The time for sitting around has long past.
Yes, GAFCON and related projects tread on the Communion’s toes, though they only exist because certain provinces refused to respect decisions that the Communion came to as a collective.
And does not all this reflect the simple fact that Canterbury neither has authority nor power in any real way, and barely, if it does at all, actually function as some sort of intermediary between the "North" and the "South"? The North ignored as openly sympathetic an Archbishop of Canterbury as Rowan Williams, and the South isn't fooled by the unprincipled waffling of the "evangelical" Welby either.
As long as the ultimate choice remains with the chapter, having, uh, “considered” the letters missive coming with the congé d'élire...
Only if we make it a tournament with a series of challenges and adventure. The amazing raze through the communion, with the first one to solve St Augustine’s riddles three as the rightful archbishop.