Bishop Duncan Speaks on Common Cause & the New Orthodox Province

In an interview with the British press today, Bishop Bob Duncan--soon to be re-elected bishop of the diocese of Pittsburgh, Southern Cone--spoke about the formation of the new, orthodox North American province (hat tip to TitusOneNine):

The four of us [i.e., dioceses of Quincy, Pittsburgh, Quincy, and Fort Worth] have agreed to come under Southern Cone which becomes the first Anglican Province to stretch pole to pole, from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Ocean as Canada and its Anglican Network in Canada are part of our relationship of the four dioceses in the states, all under the Southern Cone. This is a temporary measure. It is quite clear that when the four of us bishops who are to come under Southern Cone met with the House of Bishops of the Southern Cone in August 2007, that the Southern Cone was simply making a temporary refuge for us until we could create a North American province together.

I would like to speak about the North American Province. Many of you are aware of the GAFCON statement this past summer and the readiness of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and the group that met in Jerusalem to recognize a second province which would be both Canadian and US. We have worked together in a group called Common Cause Partnership. Right now that is eight jurisdictions, both US and Canadian. Those jurisdictions together represent 30 bishops, 800 clergy, 700 parishes, a worshipping community of about 100,000. That makes it larger than a third of the provinces of the Anglican Communion in that sheer number of people who worship on Sunday. We are committed to one another. The Common Cause Partners, while it has been a federation, is moving to a greater level of integration. I function at this point as the bishop who presides in that body as the moderator of that partnership. We have really grown together in substantial ways. The thing that would be most surprising to our English brothers and sisters is the extent to which we have been able to bridge the divide over the ordination of women. We actually are a body that has both those that ordain women and those that do not ordain women and there is a level of respect among us that is something that only the Lord could do. The strongest indication of that respect is that Forward in Faith and jurisdictions that do not ordain women have repeatedly chosen me who very clearly supports the ordination of women as their spokesman and leader. That might not happen in other parts of the Anglican Communion but hopefully it is part of our reality.

Read the entire report at Anglican Mainstream.