Many Episcopalians returned to work today still pondering the communiqué from the Primates’ Meeting that concluded Feb. 25 in Northern Ireland. The detailed, five-page statement recognizes, among other things, that the Episcopal Church needs more time for it s legislative bodies to respond to the recommendations in the Windsor Report.

But the statement also spoke with “clarity and resolve,” according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in its expectation that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada would eventually respond to the “specific challenges and requests” anticipated by the Windsor Report.

Until that time, the communiqué further suggests that those two provinces voluntarily withdraw their representatives from the Anglican Consultative Council while those legislative bodies decide.

Describing the meeting as “not easy for any of us,” Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold said in a statement released at the end of the meeting: “We will have the opportunity to speak out of the truth of our experience. I welcome this opportunity knowing that the Episcopal Church has sought to act with integrity in response to the Spirit, and that we have worked, and continue to work, to honor the different perspectives very much present within our Church. Also during this time, the Anglican Consultative Council will be listening with care to what we have to say.”

The Windsor Report was published last October and written by the Lambeth Commission on Communion, a theologically and culturally diverse 17-member task force selected by the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, to make recommendations for “maintaining the highest degree of communion that may be possible” in the aftermath of the New Hampshire consecration and the decision by some dioceses in both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to conduct public blessings of same-sex relationships.

“People are free to make decisions and there are questions on the table which have not been answered. We are trying to make sure they are answered in the best and most responsible way possible,” Archbishop Williams said at the closing press conference following the release of the communiqué. “Any lasting solution will require people to say, someway or another, yes, that they were wrong, wrong about something. What, I don’t know. That is for them to determine.”