* However, these very divisions are occasions upon which the church, if it is obedient to Christ's charge to be one, can enter more deeply into the unity to which it is called. You have heard me say it over and over again: "We are One Church." We must be obedient to Christ's charge to be one even as Jesus and the Father are one. We are One Church. Jesus himself gathers us, calls us, and sends us forth to share the Good News of salvation. Secondly, I believe we are called to bear witness to the fact that the Windsor report calls Anglicans within the Episcopal Church and the entire Anglican Communion: to a process of reconciliation into a covenant intended to bring about processes for overcoming division and maintaining unity that allows Anglicans throughout the world to claim membership in a Communion of churches

* I will say some more about the specific steps we've taken and the process outlined by the Archbishop in a moment.

* I believe and continue to maintain, that in the midst of a long period of conflict and uncertainty, the Diocese of Texas is called to make a witness that as One Church our divisions are properly settled not by decisive, principled action that brings separation, but by means of charity.

* You need to know that I intend to lead by following the Windsor Report and the Archbishop's most recent statements.

* As a bishop in the House of Bishops and in relationship to The Most Reverend Right Honorable Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, I intend to be vocal that I support a view of the Anglican Communion upheld by the Windsor Report.

* As many of you know prior to General Convention I met with the Archbishop along with a number of other bishops from a wide spectrum of diocese, all of which support the Windsor Report. These bishops are: o Rt. Rev. Gary Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas; the Rt. Rev. John B. Lipscomb, Bishop of Southwest Florida; the Rt. Rev. Edward Little II, Bishop of Northern Indiana; the Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana; the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr., Bishop of South Carolina; the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, Bishop of Dallas; the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey N. Steenson, Bishop of the Rio Grande; and the Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, Bishop of Rhode Island. I intend to share with you my thoughts about what went on at General Convention, and my thoughts about the future. But I am going to tell you again: I intend to remain within the Episcopal Church.

* A number of you have told me or had public conversations regarding my statements about remaining in ECUSA and charting a course in line with the Windsor Report - and you believe it is impossible. You are mistaken. I am an Episcopalian and I intend to remain in this church.

* You know the church is my home. You know I have spent much of my life as an Episcopal priest and Bishop. You know I love our Anglican heritage. More importantly though, I intend to remain in this church because I believe that the Diocese of Texas is called to witness to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion that we may be unified beyond differences into a church that is about the work of the Gospel of Christ.

* I believed it before convention and I believe it today.

* I am going to hold onto the central importance of "communion" and I refuse to trim the notion either by moralizing it or identifying it with confessional agreement.

* I am not going to contribute to further division within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion by leaving. I will stay the course we are on and together we are going to bear both a truthful and charitable witness.

* I will continue to work with those people and dioceses that believe that the Windsor Report is the way forward.

* Some individuals, aware of Fort Worth's request and a number of other actions through the Church, have asked if I will request "alternative primatial oversight"? First, I am the senior bishop in the House of Bishops. While I have different views regarding the church than Bishop Jefferts-Schori, I have a good working relationship with her and believe that will continue. Further, I have a healthy relationship, a communion relationship, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and do not feel it necessary to make such a request.

What did we actually do at Convention?

This is an important question and one that I want to walk you through step by step.

From Resolution A159: "The Episcopal Church reaffirm the abiding commitment of The Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible "The Episcopal Church is in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer."

That the Episcopal church "join with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the primates, and the Anglican Consultative Council in making a commitment to the vision of interdependent life in Christ, characterized by forbearance, trust, and respect, and commend the Windsor Report and process as a means of deepening our understanding of that commitment."

From Paragraph 134 of the Windsor report came Resolution A160: "The Episcopal Church, mindful of 'the repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation enjoined on us by Christ,' express its regret for straining the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the General Convention of 2003 and the consequences which followed; offer its sincerest apology to those within our Anglican Communion who are offended by our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our church and other parts of the Communion; and ask forgiveness as we seek to live into deeper levels of communion one with another." From Resolution A165:

"The Episcopal Church commend the Windsor Report 'as offering a way forward for the mutual life of our Communion' (Primates' Communiqué), and as an essential and substantive contribution to the process of living into deeper levels of communion and interdependence across the Anglican Communion. That the "Episcopal Church [commit] to the ongoing 'Windsor Process,' a process of discernment as to the nature and unity of the Church, as we pursue a common life of dialogue, listening, and growth, formed and informed by the bonds of communion we share; and urge all members of this church to commit themselves to the call of greater communion and interdependent life" A166 Stated that:

"The Episcopal Church, as a demonstration of our commitment to mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Anglican Communion, support the process of the development of an Anglican Covenant that underscores our unity in faith, order, and common life in the service of God's mission."

" That the 75th General Convention direct the International Concerns Standing Committee of the Executive Council and the Episcopal Church's members of the Anglican Consultative Council to follow the development processes of an Anglican Covenant in the Communion, and report regularly to the Executive Council as well as to the 76th General Convention"

I was satisfied with each of these resolutions:

* The statement of regret
* The statements of interdependence
* The statements of the essential nature and contributions of the Windsor Report
* And the statements regarding our participation in the development of an Anglican Covenant.

A161 as you well know was the resolution that received the most press and really was an essential ingredient to how serious General Convention took these four commitments. It failed and B033 was proposed during the special joint session of both houses. B033 states:

"That the 75th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report's invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation." "That this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."

I voted in favor, as did your deputation.

You should know that I was not satisfied with the final language in B033 because the language of "moratorium" was dropped, as was the language of "refrain from."

As you may know this was a very tough battle. It was my perception from listening to those who were speaking against B033 that both ends of the spectrum attempted to defeat B033.

Two very different groups comprising 22 Bishops (out of the 167 Bishops present or 13% of the whole) made remarkably similar statements regarding B033 that really highlighted, for me, the division those on the furthest ends of the spectrum were feeling, and it showed their ultimate disregard for the leadership of the whole.

One Group of 7 bishops: Questioned the integrity of our process; and dissented from the resolutions course of action.

A second group of 15 bishops on the opposite side: Questioned the integrity of B033 stating it was misleading; and then, disassociated themselves with those actions they do not feel comply with the Windsor Report

It is rare that I agree with Frank Griswold but I believe he was accurate in portraying the two political groups:

"...we need to be mindful of the dynamics that have brought us to where we are. Some among us feel that expressions of restraint with regard to the office of bishop demean the dignity of those among us who are gay and lesbian. Others among us may be opposed to expressions of restraint, which would make it more difficult for them to justify their apparent need to establish a separate ecclesial body. Nothing would better serve such purposes than to be able to say that we, because of our action or inaction, have chosen to walk apart from the rest of the Communion. In a strange way, those with very different views are able to vote on the same side of the question."

The Archbishop of Canterbury's Response

I have said again and again that I will follow the lead of the Archbishop.

So, before I give you my view of our work into the future, I would like to give you a few points made by the Archbishop of Canterbury regarding these resolutions and a matter I have not yet mentioned - the election of Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori as Presiding Bishop.

Reflecting upon the election, consent and consecration of Gene Robinson Archbishop Williams said, "...whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them. Some actions - and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches."

Affirming the fact that some diocese and provinces within the communion may indeed live into a communion covenant and some may not, Williams reflected: "Those churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness: some might not be willing to do this. We could arrive at a situation where there were 'constituent' Churches in the Anglican Communion and other 'churches in association', which were bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of the same sources but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion and not sharing the same constitutional structures".

Regarding the local diocese and church which is out of sync with its province, the Archbishop said,

"It could mean the need for local Churches to work at ordered and mutually respectful separation between constituent and associated elements; but it could also mean a positive challenge for churches to work out what they believed to be involved in belonging in a global sacramental fellowship, a chance to rediscover a positive common obedience to the mystery of God's gift that was not a matter of coercion from above but that of 'waiting for each other' that St Paul commends to the Corinthians."

Archbishop Williams stresses that the matter cannot be resolved by his decree:

"...the idea of an Archbishop of Canterbury resolving any of this by decree is misplaced, however tempting for many. The Archbishop of Canterbury presides and convenes in the Communion, and may...outline the theological framework in which a problem should be addressed; but he must always act collegially, with the bishops of his own local Church and with the primates and the other instruments of communion."

Reflecting on the process ahead, which he admits will take some time, the Archbishop stated: "That is why the process currently going forward of assessing our situation in the wake of the General Convention is a shared one. But it is nonetheless possible for the Churches of the Communion to decide that this is indeed the identity, the living tradition - and by God's grace, the gift - we want to share with the rest of the Christian world in the coming generation; more importantly still, that this is a valid and vital way of presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. My hope is that the period ahead - of detailed response to the work of General Convention, exploration of new structures, and further refinement of the covenant model - will renew our positive appreciation of the possibilities of our heritage so that we can pursue our mission with deeper confidence and harmony."

As many of you know more than half of the 38 provinces in the Anglican Communion have women priests with a number of the provinces having women bishops.

Regarding the election of Bishop Schori as Presiding Bishop, Williams stated:

"There are other fault lines of division, of course, including the legitimacy of ordaining women as priests and bishops. But (as has often been forgotten) the Lambeth Conference did resolve that for the time being those churches that did ordain women as priests and bishops and those that did not had an equal place within the Anglican spectrum. Women bishops attended the last Lambeth Conference. There is a fairly general (though not universal) recognition that differences about this can still be understood within the spectrum of manageable diversity about what the Bible and the tradition make possible."

Regarding the consecration of practicing gay bishops and our General Convention resolutions, Williams makes two points: "On the issue of practicing gay bishops, there has been no such agreement, and it is not unreasonable to seek for a very much wider and deeper consensus before any change is in view, let alone foreclosing the debate by ordaining someone, whatever his personal merits, who was in a practicing gay partnership."

And, "The recent resolutions of the General Convention have not produced a complete response to the challenges of the Windsor Report, but on this specific question there is at the very least an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation in the extremely hard work that went into shaping the wording of the final formula."

Regarding breaking from communion and with one another Williams writes: "It is true that witness to what is passionately believed to be the truth sometimes appears a higher value than unity, and there are moving and inspiring examples in the twentieth century. If someone genuinely thinks that a move like the ordination of a practicing gay bishop is that sort of thing, it is understandable that they are prepared to risk the breakage of a unity they can only see as false or corrupt. But the risk is a real one; and it is never easy to recognize when the moment of inevitable separation has arrived - to recognize that this is the issue on which you stand or fall and that this is the great issue of faithfulness to the gospel. The nature of prophetic action is that you do not have a cast-iron guarantee that you're right.

"But let's suppose that there isn't that level of clarity about the significance of some divisive issue. If we do still believe that unity is generally a way of coming closer to revealed truth ('only the whole Church knows the whole Truth' as someone put it), we now face some choices about what kind of Church we as Anglicans are or want to be. Some speak as if it would be perfectly simple - and indeed desirable - to dissolve the international relationships, so that every local Church could do what it thought right. This may be tempting, but it ignores two things at least.

"First, it fails to see that the same problems and the same principles apply within local Churches as between Churches. The divisions don't run just between national bodies at a distance, they are at work in each locality, and pose the same question: are we prepared to work at a common life which doesn't just reflect the interests and beliefs of one group but tries to find something that could be in everyone's interest - recognizing that this involves different sorts of costs for everyone involved? It may be tempting to say, 'let each local church go its own way'; but once you've lost the idea that you need to try to remain together in order to find the fullest possible truth, what do you appeal to in the local situation when serious division threatens?

"Second, it ignores the degree to which we are already bound in with each other's life through a vast network of informal contacts and exchanges.

"These are not the same as the formal relations of ecclesiastical communion, but they are real and deep, and they would be a lot weaker and a lot more casual without those more formal structures. They mean that no local Church and no group within a local Church can just settle down complacently with what it or its surrounding society finds comfortable. The Church worldwide is not simply the sum total of local communities. It has a cross-cultural dimension that is vital to its health and it is naïve to think that this can survive without some structures to make it possible. An isolated local Church is less than a complete Church.

"Both of these points are really grounded in the belief that our unity is something given to us prior to our choices - let alone our votes. 'You have not chosen me but I have chosen you', says Jesus to his disciples; and when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we are saying that we are all there as invited guests, not because of what we have done. The basic challenge that practically all the churches worldwide, of whatever denomination, so often have to struggle with is, 'Are we joining together in one act of Holy Communion, one Eucharist, throughout the world, or are we just celebrating our local identities and our personal preferences?'

Regarding long-term development of structures to support this idea of Communion or as we say in the diocese One church: "But what our Communion lacks is a set of adequately developed structures which is able to cope with the diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a world of rapid global communication and huge cultural variety. The tacit conventions between us need spelling out - not for the sake of some central mechanism of control but so that we have ways of being sure we're still talking the same language, aware of belonging to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. It is becoming urgent to work at what adequate structures for decision-making might look like."

"The idea of a 'covenant' between local Churches (developing alongside the existing work being done on harmonizing the church law of different local Churches) is one method that has been suggested, and it seems to me the best way forward. It is necessarily an 'opt-in' matter.

Regarding our moment of history the Archbishop states: "There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment. Neither the liberal nor the conservative can simply appeal to a historic identity that doesn't correspond with where we now are.

"The different components in our heritage can, up to a point, flourish in isolation from each other. But any one of them pursued on its own would lead in a direction ultimately outside historic Anglicanism...To accept that each of these has a place in the church's life and that they need each other means that the enthusiasts for each aspect have to be prepared to live with certain tensions or even sacrifices - with a tradition of being positive about a responsible critical approach to Scripture, with the anomalies of a historic ministry not universally recognized in the Catholic world, with limits on the degree of adjustment to the culture and its habits that is thought possible or acceptable. Waiting

In his letter to the Primates the Archbishop has outlined in fuller detail what I have given you only samplings of here.

The Primates of the Anglican Communion will meet early next year to consider the matter.

In the meantime, a group appointed by the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates will be assisting Archbishop Williams in considering the resolutions of the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church (USA) in response to the questions posed by the Windsor Report.

Our Future

As far as the Anglican Communion is concerned, in a small way, we will have to wait and see how the Archbishop and ACC respond to General Convention.

As the Archbishop has stated there are many who want him to act now or to make a decision immediately. This is not going to be the case. Actions trying to foretell what the Archbishop and Communion will do seem premature.

I believe that I as your Bishop, remaining firmly rooted in the Windsor Report documents and the Archbishop's most recent statements, and having visited and been clear with the Archbishop regarding our relationship to Canterbury, we will remain in full communion with the Archbishop and Communion - irregardless of the satisfaction with the General Convention actions.

I believe this will move forward, as the Archbishop has described, through the development of a covenant process providing a way in which we will be afforded a Communion relationship without fracturing our relationship within the Episcopal Church.

I intend to remain in The Episcopal Church and the Communion and I believe there is a path forward.

As for the Diocese of Texas, we will continue our One Church missionary work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ -- transforming lives.

We have a great deal of work to do and I want us to continue to keep our hands and hearts deep in the ministry God has blessed us with in the diocese of Texas.

END