By now the Lambeth Commission will have completed its final meeting (6th - 9th September) before presenting its report on 18 October. However, on the eve of their meeting advanced warnings of what the report might contain have been leaked. Newspaper reports have appeared in the Times and the Telegraph.

Some reports have even indicated that the Queen has expressed a view – well, she is the head of the English Church after all. Although the Queen is not directly connected to the New Zealand church, she is indirectly in that our Constitution defines us as an Anglican Church "in communion with the See of Canterbury". If what is said about the Queen is true, then it may not have been the first time she has quietly expressed her opinion. For it is said that it wasn't so much conservatives evangelicals that lent on the Archbishop to ask Jeffery John to withdraw from his appointment as Bishop of Reading, but the Queen herself.

It seems that the commission has favoured many of the ideas emanating from the Anglican Communion Institute a conservative think-tank whose president is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey.

I suspect that the leaks from the Commission are an attempt by more liberal members to bring wider pressure to bear upon the final format of the Commission's report. Why else would information be revealed at this late stage, when strict confidentiality has been observed up until this point. I think that liberal members, finding themselves in the minority on the Commission have played their last card.

And it seems to have worked. Already a delegation of four American liberal Bishops have arrived in London to lobby the Archbishop with the American Primate, Frank Griswold, is on his way. In the past these tactics have been very successful. Only time will tell whether they will work in the present environment.

Rev Malcolm Falloon
Warden