NASSAU, The Bahamas – Anglicans from around the world are expected to meet in The Bahamas, beginning January 15, 2007, to begin formal discussions on the controversial election and consecration of a practicing homosexual as Episcopal Bishop in New Hampshire, United States of America.
Archbishop of the Province of the West Indies, His Grace the Most Reverend Drexel Gomez, will chair the five-day meeting in Nassau.
The 10 committee members will include the Archbishop of South-East Asia.Archbishop Gomez was appointed late last year by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams to head an Anglican Covenant to examine the fallout in the Anglican Communion after the events in America, focusing around Reverend Gene Robinson’s election and consecration.
The proposal for the Covenant was made as part of the Windsor Report, produced by the Lambeth Commission.
Archbishop Gomez said the reason for the Covenant was to suggest a way in which the member churches in the Anglican Communion could meet as member churches of the worldwide Communion and agree to “be committed one to the
other and held accountable one to the other.”
Dr. Williams appointed the special Covenant group to meet and submit some suggestions as to what a Covenant would look like to be presented to the worldwide Anglican Communion for adoption.
The committee will meet in Nassau from January 15-19.“What we hope to do,” said Archbishop Gomez “is to start work on a formula which we would share with the Archbishops of the Communion at the Archbishops’ meeting, which will be held in Tanzania in the middle ofFebruary.
“Hopefully, we would have something to present to the Lambeth Conference in the summer of 2008.”
Committee members are expected to come from the United States, Africa, Europe and South-East Asia.
