Leaders

The Anglican world community is looking for a way out of the threatening schism in uniform rules for biblical interpretation. That's what the 670 Anglican bishops gathered for the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury discussed Wednesday. Common hermeneutical principles now to help resolve elementary disputes such as homosexuality. The guest was also Cardinal Walter Kasper of the Curia, who sees ecumenism in danger.

New Zealand Archbishop David Moxon had earlier presented a draft to the bishops on the matter. So far, the 38 independent provinces of the Anglican Communion have no common principles on the interpretation of Scripture. Whether Moxon's proposal will find a majority is not yet certain. The archbishop proposed four common principles: Jesus Christ, revealed through the Bible, would form the foundation of the "house of biblical interpretation". The context of origin of the writings is to be understood as an entrance and the challenges of today as walls, he said. The protecting roof is the church, which guarantees continuity with its tradition. The results of the consultations are to be included in the final document of the Lambeth Conference.

Carsten Uwe Rentzing © Harald Oppitz (KNA)

On Friday, he announced in Dresden that he was stepping down as bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony at the earliest possible date. He is also the Deputy Presiding Bishop of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany (VELKD).

The compromise called for a possible female bishop to be paired with a male bishop in her diocese for those congregations that reject female church leaders. In the decisive vote, the proposal fell just six votes short of approval, according to media reports. The vote confronts the Anglican Church in England with a new test of strength between the liberal wing led by Williams and Sentamu and the conservative forces. Before the vote, Williams and Sentamu had stressed that they would not take the vote as a show of loyalty to their own work. Williams, as spiritual leader of the Anglican Church of England, has long faced fierce criticism. In addition to the consecration of women bishops, the treatment of openly homosexual bishops is another point of contention. Even before the start of the General Synod, which runs through Tuesday, the possible nomination of the gay dean of St. Albans, Jeffrey John, to be new bishop of Southwark caused debate.

As the community announced on its website Friday, a woman recently confided to Prior Frere Alois that a Taize brother had "put her in a relationship of dependence" years ago. She accused him of having "spiritually, psychologically and sexually abused" her until mid-2019.

Sometimes coincidences are particularly memorable and even embarrassing: On the same day that Saxony-Anhalt's AfD leader Poggenburg, amid the howls of his supporters, slobbered against Turks in Germany as "camel drivers" and "kummel traders" and against people with dual citizenship as "fatherless riffraff" ""that we no longer want here," it was announced that for the first time an AfD official – unlike at the Protestant Kirchentag, even a high-ranking one – has been invited to a Catholic Congress podium. The success of the right-wing populists has now also impressed organized Catholicism.