I'm on my way home from Memphis, where I have been the last couple of days in a planning session with the Faculty of the College for Bishops (we're planning for the week-long Residency for the 19 newest bishops in the Episcopal Church, which will happen in May).

I am aware that with the conclusion of the Primates Meeting in Ireland yesterday, there are some misleading reports appearing in the media (CNN, USA Today, NPR, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, etc, etc). So, I thought to write this note to try to set what you may be hearing into context. (CNN, for example, has a headline: "Anglican Rift Deepens Over Gays" - that's *completely* misleading!)

Let me try to set the stage: As most of you reading this will already know, following our national 2003 General Convention in Minneapolis, there was significant difference of opinion throughout the world-wide Anglican Communion over actions taken by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA), in giving consent to the election of Gene Robinson, a gay man living in a committed same-gender relationship, to be the Bishop of New Hampshire, and also concerning a resolution which did not endorse, but did recognize that Blessings of Same-Gender Relationships are and have been happening in various places throughout our Church. A diocese in Canada has gone further, to authorize public rites to be used in these Blessings, and this has caused additional controversy throughout the world-wide Anglican Communion. These disagreements have caused some overseas bishops to cross jurisdictional lines to come to Episcopal congregations in this country, against the will of the local Bishop and Diocese, to offer "pastoral and sacramental care". This is a violation of the tradition and canons of the Anglican Communion, and has caused considerable additional strife.

As a result of these serious tensions, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury (who has spiritual leadership, but no actual jurisdiction anywhere outside England), appointed a Commission made up of representatives from throughout the world to review the situation, and to make recommendations as to how unity might be retained throughout the Anglican Communion. That report (known as the Windsor Report) was released last October, and there have been numerous meetings and conversations about its recommendations, including a special meeting of our House of Bishops in Salt Lake City last month. I reported to you on that meeting a few weeks ago.

This past week, the Primates of the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion met in Ireland to formerly receive and consider the Windsor Report. (The world-wide Anglican Communion is divided into 38 "Provinces". Ours is known as "The Episcopal Church of the United States of America". Each Province has a Primate - and ours is Frank Griswold, our Presiding Bishops. Most other Provinces have Archbishops as their Primates, who bear a good deal more authority than does our Presiding Bishop, who has no jurisdiction over the 100+ dioceses of ECUSA - but presides over our House of Bishops). The Windsor Report was actually directed to these Primates, so in some ways, any and all conversations prior to the meeting in Ireland this week have been premature. The Windsor Report, afterall, simply made recommendations to the Primates. It's up to them to take up any of those recommendations (or not) and to engage the wider Communion in consideration of their adoption (or not).

Those who are familiar with the Windsor Report will know that there were a number of very severe recommendations made - including the call for ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada to make expressions of regret, to have those who participated in Gene Robinson's ordination withdraw from representative bodies of the Anglican Communion, to have a moratorium on the ordination of any gay or lesbian persons in same-gender relationships "until a consensus has emerged throughout the Anglican Communion", to have a moratorium on the public blessing of same-gender relationships, to have a moratorium on bishops crossing one another's jurisdictional borders, to have conversations with gay & lesbian persons around the Communion so a greater understanding might be experienced, to invite ECUSA and Canada to present a theological rationale for the steps we have taken, and so forth. It goes on for pages and pages, and a number of the recommendations are quite severe.

As the Primates gathered in Ireland at the beginning of this week, there was high anxiety in many quarters, as to whether that group would be able to receive the report without coming apart at the seams. There was a chance that those with more extreme views (especially a number of the more conservative Primates) might be unwilling to accept the compromises and conversations encouraged by the report. It was feared that the majority of the Primates, for example, might insist that Frank Griswold and Andrew Hutchison (the Primates of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada) might be given "Observer Status" - meaning that they (and we) would not, for now be considered full members of the Anglican Communion for now. Or maybe there would even be a move to exclude ECUSA and ACC from the Anglican Communion altogether. Or maybe there would be such an insistence upon the more rigorous recommendations of the Windsor Report, that we would not in good conscience be able to meet the demands, and would have to make some serious decisions about whether we could remain a part of this Communion.

All of these possibilities, and more, had been speculated about, and none of them happened. In fact, there seems to have been a significant softening of many of the recommendations - - an opportunity for more compromise and conversation than many of us would have imagined possible. Clearly there are significant decisions yet to be made, and the final state of our international relationships is far from clear at this point. I know that when I go to the Spring House of Bishops meeting in a couple of weeks (meeting in Texas in mid-March), I will learn more about the intricacies of the conversations at the Primates Meeting, but to read their statement (just released), it is very promising indeed.

For example - the Primates statement says nothing about the co-consecrators of Gene Robinson (of which I am proudly and humbly one) being asked to absent themselves from the next Lambeth Conference (in 2008). Now it only asks the ECUSA and Canadian members of one representative body (The Anglican Consultative Council) to withdraw from that body until the next Lambeth (2008). At the same time, those very members have been invited to attend the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council this coming June, to present rationale for the steps we have taken at the 2003 General Convention. This allows us to step back, and acknowledge that there have indeed been serious rifts in our Communion because of what has happened, without being asked to leave the room. In other words, conversation will continue. And the body in question (the Anglican Consultative Council) is merely a *consultative* body - with no jurisdictional power whatsoever. It exists exclusively to provide for communication and consultation and collaboration and mutual support - not to impose a central authority throughout the Communion. For our representatives to step aside as formal members of the Council - especially while still being asked to attend the meeting and to be a part of the conversation, is a relatively minor thing - and allows there to be a recognition of serious difference without shutting down vital communication and the possibility for reconciliation and healing.

Another example - the Primates statement raises serious question about some of the Windsor Reports suggestions that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Commission, and the Anglican Consultative Council, be given stronger central authority in the Communion - and that a "Covenant" be signed by the Provinces of the Communion to assure greater unity (or uniformity) of doctrine and/or action. The fact that these questions are raised so seriously in the Primates Statement appears to be good news for many of us who have been concerned that the Windsor Report was recommending a reshaping of the Anglican Communion and our polity.

These are two examples. There are others I might try to elucidate, but for now, let me just say that the results of the Primates Meeting appear to have been far better than anyone might have hoped for. At least that is my impression at the moment. This is not to say that all of our problems and differences have disappeared, but it is to recognize significant movement towards healing - or at least the posturing of people in our Communion to begin to move towards such reconciliation.

So, why has the public media been so far off the mark? It's one more example of sensationalism, and a misunderstanding of the full context of the statements in the Primates' statement. It's also a result of the negative spin which the conservative groups in our church (such as the American Anglican Council) have fed to the press - and the press has seemed to buy it hook, line and sinker. To focus upon the one request that ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw their representatives to the Anglican Consultative Council until the next Lambeth as a "deepening of the rift" in the Anglican Communion, is just laughable. In the face of the other recommendations of the Windsor Report which appear to have been softened, and in the context of the ongoing conversations still to take place within the Anglican Consultative Council and elsewhere - this is a moving closer together - and hardly a widening of division. It's a shame the media has gotten it wrong (again), and that so many will be confused and disheartened by it.

Again - I will no doubt learn more when the House of Bishops meets in a couple of weeks, but for now, let's move ahead with a positive spirit and look for opportunities for conversation, conversion, and healing.

Jim