From the Church Times in England-IT HAS emerged that two women theologians, from Pakistan and Tanzania, were refused entry into the UK for the first consultation for Anglican women theological educators from across the Anglican Communion, held in Canterbury between 23 February and 2 March.
The exclusion of the women under lined a growing trend, where people were unable to obtain visas to attend Anglican Communion meetings, a source said this week. Last year, some bishops’ wives were refused visas for the Lambeth Conference.
In the run-up to the conference, a Congolese member of the Lambeth Bible-study team that was to meet in South Africa had first to spend three weeks in Kampala, Uganda, in order to get a visa to enter South Africa, the source said. UK visas from Tanzania were now processed in Nairobi, delaying the process.
In some countries, such as Egypt, visas were no longer dealt with by the British Embassy, but by commercial enterprises, who were less likely to be influenced by the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Anglican Communion Office (ACO) had resorted to issuing letters signed by the secretary general, Canon Kenneth Kearon, to give to UK embassies abroad, the source said.
The importance of having all the relevant people at such meetings was emphasised after the Canterbury consultation agreed that “networking amongst women theological edu cators both from within and outside the consultation was identified by all participants as of great significance.”
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=72182
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