PITTSBURGH: Common Cause Partnership says it wants to be recognized by GAFCON

July 26, 2008 [Episcopal News Service] The Common Cause Partnership, an attempt to unite some dissident Episcopal bishops with other self-identified Anglican groups in the U.S., has announced that it will ask to be the North American province recently proposed by the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON).

A July 24 statement by the Pittsburgh-based group said it will also ask GAFCON to seat its moderator, Episcopal Church Diocese of Pittsburgh Robert Duncan, in a yet-to-be-formed GAFCON Primates Council.

GAFCON's acceptance of the two requests would seem to be a foregone conclusion. In its Jerusalem Declaration, issued after its meeting in the Holy Land in June, GAFCON's leaders said "the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognized by the (GAFCON) Primates' Council."

Duncan's group said in its statement that "we accept the call to build the Common Cause Partnership into a truly unified body of Anglicans."