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DAR2007: Three American Bishops move into closed session with Schori, Williams
By Canon Gary L'Hommedieu in Dar es Salaam
www.virtueonline.org
2/15/2007
At around 12 noon in the White Sands Hotel, the council of the Three American Bishops (Duncan, MacPherson, and Epting) were spirited away from the lobby of this hotel for the "long awaited" conference with the American Presiding Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury. I said "long awaited", because last evening the press was told that this meeting would be inserted "somewhere" in the busy agenda of the Primates' Meeting, but when or where no one knows; as if it were of tangential importance to the outcome of the meeting or to the contents of the deliberations as they unfold.
Clearly the press was being misled, or else the press handlers were misled by their own handlers within this over-organized, overly scrupulous press drama. Everything about the Primates' Meeting so far smacks of big news being pre-spun through official channels. Part of the spin is that all this controversy is really nothing.
But it is not the conservatives, nor the Third World Primates, nor anyone representing them, who is even visible on this official spin team. The nervousness of the orthodox is left to speculation. The frayed nerves of the First World power brokers is close to the surface. Indeed, their alleged calm is the "grid" through which the entire event is being spun.
Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan was asked on his way out the door if he would be holding a press conference following the meeting. He said he was willing to talk to the press, thus respectfully acknowledging that he is not one of the Primates but was invited here by them to tell his story. He was saying that he will be willing to tell his story to the rest of the world as well.
There are some here who are going to great lengths not to tell their story too clearly, because if they did, all hell would break loose.
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