The Presiding Bishop Responds to the Archbishop of Canterbury

In a Pastoral Letter to the members of The Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has commented on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Pentecost Letter to the Anglican Communion.

I think Bishop Katharine's letter expresses very clearly two characteristics that I have always believed to be written into the DNA of Anglicanism: the ability to hold in communion members with profound disagreements on important matters; and an awareness that we may be wrong in our reading of Scripture and our discernment of the Spirit. This latter characteristic is, perhaps surpisingly, affirmed, at least by implication in the Articles of Religion. Article XIX states, "As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." Anglican humility would suggest that this assertion can be made about all Churches, including our own and the other member Churches of the Anglican Communion.