Sonya Sutton's Reflections on Lambeth
Spouses of bishops who attended the Lambeth Conference were invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury's wife to a parallel, independent gathering: the Spouses' Conference. Bishop Sutton's wife, Sonya, attended the Spouses' Conference and shares her reflections below.
It was a privilege to be present at the first half of the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion’s gathering of bishops, which occurs every 10 years. Nearly 700 bishops and their spouses were being housed and fed at Kent University just outside of Canterbury in England, and it was an amazing gathering of people from all over the world, many in colorful national dress and of course in various shades of purple.
Several things became clear to me in my time there. Though the Anglican Communion may well be the last gasp of the British Empire, its value in bringing people of faith together from around the world is more important than I had realized. My respect for the archbishop has increased as I saw more clearly the need for him to balance the power struggles between bishops and the pressures on him to do so.
And I am far more fortunate to be an American than I had realized. I talked to wives of bishops from many countries, and they face hardships and expectations that I know I could not deal with. There are women who came to this conference hoping to learn how to sew their husband’s vestments so that he would have some. I spoke to one woman from the Sudan who said the best thing about being married to a bishop is that she is now in a monogamous marriage. There were women in various discussion groups I met with who had no choice but to go with their husbands for weeks and months at a time to visitations in remote rural village churches, leaving young children behind with other family members.
And what of the one issue on everyone’s minds? Namely, how will American bishops react to the continuing, vocal resistance by some to full inclusion of gay/lesbian clergy and in particular to the consecration of New Hampshire’s bishop, Gene Robinson? It was the elephant in the room for the first few polite days of the conference, but things were beginning to heat up as I left and angry words were being exchanged. The sermon at Canterbury Cathedral last Sunday by the Bishop of Sri Lanka made it very clear that the Anglican Communion must find a way to resolve this conflict in favor of equal rights for all, and we know that he was speaking so bluntly with the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The American bishops that I heard discussing this topic will not back down from their full support of Gene Robinson.
But as a spouse, I was very much on the periphery of any substantive discussions. My experience of Lambeth was far more pleasant. Evensong at Canterbury Cathedral, outings to Sissinghurst and Whitestable on the North Sea, tea at several parish churches hosted by ladies surely straight from a Masterpiece Theater set, meeting the queen, lunch at Lambeth Palace, a side trip to see friends in St. Alban’s and to attend a concert at the Abbey there. I am grateful for these experiences, grateful that I could witness the breadth of the Anglican Communion, and most grateful of all that I have my own corner of the Communion right here.
