File: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby meets Uganda President, Yoweri K Museveni at State House in 2017. He was accompanied by Archbishop Stanley Ntagali. PPU Photo.
As you may recall, the Archbishop of Uganda Stanley Ntagali earlier vowed not attend the next meeting of the worldwide Anglican Communion citing the gradual tolerance and push for same-sex marriages during the gathering.
Uganda Christian News has learnt the topic is not officially on the agenda of this week’s meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Hong Kong.
According to Church Times, members of the ACC say they hope the April 28-May 5 meeting will bind the communion closer together in its mission across the world.
Episcopal News Service reported that the meeting will focus on the “continuing effort to build relationships, to build the communion, and to deal with those things that are important to the people of the world.”
Those issues include relief and development work, women, families, domestic violence, human trafficking, poverty and hunger, climate change, and indigenous people, according to the draft agenda.
Members will also consider more church-related topics such as faith and order work, liturgical consultations, ecumenical and interreligious relationships, theological education and prayer initiatives.
At the opening press conference, on Saturday, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is reported to have addressed complexities of the ‘gay agenda’ when issuing invitations to the Lambeth Conference next year, according to Church Times
“How we deal with people of different views, from views that are passionately, deeply against any same-sex relations through to people who believe it is a matter of justice . . . and [that] it is injustice not to accept same-sex marriage . . . whichever you’re dealing with, the first rule is: these are people.
“The most painful part, to me, of the decisions that have to be made, is that I know that, at every moment that I write a letter or make a decision, I am making a decision about people — and that there is no decision that will result in nobody getting hurt.
“If I’d decided differently on the decision about same-sex spouses — and it hurt a lot of people, by the way — I would have hurt a huge number of people elsewhere in the Communion. And there wasn’t a nice solution which I looked and thought, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do that, I’ll take the nasty solution.’ It’s not as simple as that.” he said.
In a confidential letter addressed to the bishops, clergy and other Lay leaders in the Church, Archbishop Stanley Ntagali in 2016 indicated it had been resolved by the Provincial Assembly that the Church province of Uganda “will not participate” in any of such conferences of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) until “Godly order is restored.”
On homosexuality, Archbishop Ntagali said: “The practice is incompatible with Scripture…and cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions.”
