The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) has concluded its four-day post-Lambeth Conference meeting in Texas. A spokesman for the Rt Rev Gary Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas and host of the Dec 15-19 gathering at the diocese’s Mustang Island Conference Centre south of Corpus Christi, said she did not expect the group to issue a formal statement.

Sources in London say the WCG will forward its recommendations to Dr Rowan Williams, who is expected to share the conclusions with the primates during their Jan 31 to Feb 6 meeting in Alexandria. At the close of the Lambeth Conference, WCG chairman Bishop Clive Handford said the group’s work would also be placed before the May Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting in Jamaica for action.

Events, however, appear to have overtaken the relevance of the WCG’s work; its calls for the swift implementation of moratoriums on gay bishops and blessings and parallel provinces in the Anglican Communion have been largely rejected. The leaders of the third province movement in North America tell us that while they are the ostensive beneficiaries of the WCG’s plans for a safe harbour, they have not been contacted by the group.

In February, Dr Williams appointed the former primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Presiding Bishop Clive Handford, chairman of the six-member committee, and named Bishop Lillibridge, Archbishop John Chew of Singapore, Bishop Victoria Matthews of Christchurch, New Zealand, Bishop Donald Mtetemela of Ruaha, Tanzania and the former Dean of St Paul’s, the Very Rev John Moses to the group.

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