Armagh Diocesan Synod: The Church of Ireland primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, has said the Lambeth Commission on Diversity report, to be published next Monday, will not be "a judgment on sexuality issues. It is an agenda for relationships where we face deep and serious disagreements."
Archbishop Eames was giving his presidential address to the Armagh diocesan synod yesterday.
The commission, chaired by Archbishop Eames, was set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, last October in response to reaction in the worldwide Anglican Communion to the decision to appoint a gay man, Canon Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire in the US. He was consecrated bishop in November.
In June last year, the Anglican diocese of New Westminster in Canada approved a rite for blessing same-sex relationships.
Both events provoked deep and varied reaction within the international Anglican Communion, leading to a meeting of primates at Lambeth in London last October.
Following that the commission was set up.
Yesterday Archbishop Eames said recommendations in the report had the support of all members of the commission.
It was not a set of conclusions that would please everyone, but was "not the bland report some feared.
"It has teeth, it has integrity. It has suggestions which will only be really tested by the degree to which the churches of the Anglican Communion are prepared to ask questions of themselves.
"It is about that vital word 'communion' - how we relate to each other, how we regard each other and how we see God's will for the life of a diverse, vibrant and multicultural world church," he said.
It was "about what sort of Anglican communion we want to belong to. It is about how we deal with and relate to each other but above all, it is a seeking for what is the will of God for the Anglican Communion," he said.
There would be an opportunity for the entire Anglican Communion to discuss its proposals in the next few months.
"I recognise that there will not be complete acceptance of all the report has to say, but I do pray that it will be given serious, prayerful and honest appraisal," he said.
As he had listened over the year "to so much argument, to voices which were at times so strident, even angry", he found himself "thinking of the desperate needs of this world".
"I asked myself what was the real mission of the Christian church. May I suggest that when you see the final report of the Lambeth Commission, you do the same," Archbishop Eames said.
