The chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) has apologized to the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada for the treatment the two Churches received from the ACC at its June meeting in Nottingham. He also commended as “exemplary” the response of the Episcopal Church and the Church of Canada to the Windsor Report, the Anglican Journal reported.

Speaking to the Council of General Synod, the body that governs the Anglican Church of Canada between meetings of its triennial Synod, in Mississauga, Ontario, on Nov. 19, the Rt. Rev. John Paterson, Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand, said he faced “daily nightmares” in managing the 10-day meeting noting he “did not enjoy” it.

The “listening process” called for by the ACC and primates will only work if the member churches of the Anglican Communion “talk to ourselves and to others” about the Church’s differences over homosexuality, Bishop Paterson said.

Bishop Paterson repeated arguments he made to the ACC in June in which he objected to the primates’ request that the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada withdraw from the council. The delegates rejected Bishop Paterson’s arguments at Nottingham and voted to adopt the call for the Episcopal Church to withdraw from the ACC on its own.

The council chairman also predicted that the member provinces would fail to ratify the delegates’ decision to include the primates as ex officio members of the ACC. He said it would take several years for the provinces to ratify the change in the ACC’s membership, and he hoped during that period “momentum” would build to undo the June vote.

To find more news, feature articles, and commentary not available online, we invite you to subscribe to The Living Church magazine. To learn more, click here.