Bishop Victoria Matthews Champions the Covenant

From The Living Church-

The General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has affirmed three-fourths of the Anglican Covenant in principle and asked its “episcopal units” to discuss the Covenant for the next two years.

The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews, Bishop of Christchurch, spoke in favor of the Covenant on May 10 when the synod began discussing the matter.

“There are those who believe it is all about one or another explosive event in the life of the Communion. I prefer to think it has a bigger vision than that,” she said.

The bishop described the Covenant as an effort to preserve Anglican unity.

“We are Anglican — not all the same, but deeply connected,” she said. “Sometimes it feels like we are door knobs or door handles pointed in opposite directions, but connected at the centre — you turn one, and the other turns as well. We are connected by and with the gospel.”

Dr. Tony Fitchett of Dunedin led a successful challenge to the fourth section of the Covenant, which addresses discipline within the Anglican Communion.

The first three sections of the Covenant are “mother’s milk — obviously good for us all,” Fitchett said, while describing the fourth section as “punitive, controlling and completely un-Anglican.”

“Though the language used has been moderated, and has become fuzzier, in successive drafts, the general thrust of Section 4.2 remains as it began: that a Communion-wide body … can discipline a province and recommend its exclusion from Communion structures,” Fitchett said. “Further, a new clause, 4.2.8, excludes all provinces which have not adopted the Covenant from decision-making about exclusion of provinces.”

On a motion by Fitchett, General Synod approved the first three sections of the Covenant in principle.

The same motion asks the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion to seek opinions from legal advisers “regarding the appropriateness of the provisions of Clause 4.2.8 of the proposed Covenant.”

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2010/5/11/bishop-victoria-matthews-champions-the-covenant