Bishops of the Anglican Communion have gathered for the Lambeth Conference, which has begun with a retreat. But the calm atmosphere of prayer and contemplation evoked by the word seems to be in strong contrast with the rancorous character of the preliminaries so far. There does not seem to be much grace about the place, and with grace comes respect. Perhaps the retreat will go some way towards repairing that, although the refusal of a significant number of conservative bishops to take part at all rather limits the scope for a mood change. And if the Holy Spirit is after all there to guide them, where is his kindly light likely to lead?

A return to fundamentals might help. The Anglican Communion prefers not to have a precise definition of itself: "being in Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury" raises the question of what being in communion really means. The nearest the Anglican Communion has by way of a self-description can be found in the various theological reports that have been commissioned over the years to address certain internal problems of church order, chiefly over female ordination. And what characterises them is reliance on a theology of "church", an ecclesiology, that was hammered out in the course of various projects undertaken by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (Arcic), especially those on authority. International Anglicanism has come to use this "Arcic theology" as a way of describing itself to itself. And thus it has come to bear a considerable resemblance to post-Second Vatican Council Catholic ecclesiology.

But in the Catholic Church there is an emotional bond accompanying this ecclesiology, concerning the importance of the Petrine office of the Bishop of Rome and the sense of loyalty and respect the office engenders. Arcic theology notwithstanding, there does not seem to be an adequate parallel in the Anglican Communion. Traditionally, Anglicans would say that they do not need it, and that the Roman ...

The Church of England is groping towards a harmonious solution of its internal crisis over the ordination of women bishops, but with no guarantee that such a solution exists. The crisis reveals much about the nature of Anglicanism itself. The Anglican claim to be both Catholic and Reformed is a challenging one, for it sets up a tension at the heart of the Church between two tendencies which sometimes point in opposite ...

Forward in Faith, which represents traditionalist Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England, has written to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York warning them that many of its members could "defect" if women bishops were introduced without adequate safeguards. The letter was signed by 1,333 clergy, and the issue comes before the General Synod later this month. ...

A new Government in Zimbabwe was the necessary but not sufficient condition for rescuing it from the appalling state into which Robert Mugabe has allowed it to sink. He has now blocked regime change by terrorising his opponents, the Movement for Democratic Change, into withdrawing from the rerun of the presidential election that it was probably about to win. So the economy remains in ruins and human-rights violations ...

A gathering of a family around the supper table is a moment when the bonds that are shared are reinforced, the love its members have for one another is enhanced and the very experience of coming together can strengthen them as they go out into the world. But it is also a place where old jealousies can resurface, where squabbling can break out and enmities occur. That, sadly, is also true of those called to the Lord's ...