The Primate of All-Ireland, the Most Rev. Richard Clarke, Achbishop of Armagh, has endorsed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s go-slow approach to the Lambeth Conference. In an interview published this week with the Irish Catholic, Dr. Clarke said he believes Canterbury will “evaluate the situation” carefully before calling the next conference. Held every ten years, at the close of the 2008 conference, Archbishop Rowan Williams stated the next conference would be held in 2018, while meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council’s central committee worked on the assumption of a 2018 date. However, Archbishop Welby postponed to a time uncertain the every ten-year gathering of Anglican bishops in light of the broken relationships among the churches. Dr. Clarke noted Archbishop Welby had only been in office a short time and was soliciting views from across the communion on “what kind of Lambeth do we want, what would be appropriate.” He said: “I think Archbishop Welby, like the good hard-headed businessman that he was, is taking a step back, trying to survey the scene, and seeing what is the best way for us to take counsel together and in what format. He is not a man who is going to be wrong-footed, nor is he going to be frog-marched,” said Dr. Clarke.
