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Dr Andrew Goddard of The Anglican Comnunion Institute, an organisation with a board of directors including Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has written a of the actions and decisions of the Episcopal General Convention and assessed their level of compliance with the recommendations of the Windsor Report.

Goddard's analysis concludes: "The final paragraph of the Report stated, ‘There remains a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together. Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart’ (para 157). Sadly, that is what it appears the Communion must now do in relation to the Episcopal Church given its actions in General Convention 2006."

It's possible, of course, that the Episcopal Church would decide to walk first -- if, for example, the Archbishop of Canterbury required their bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference of 2008 as observors only.

The Institute's to Columbus was equally doom-laded: "Very few people, on a moment’s reflection, will believe that this climactic statement to the Communion will satisfy the hopes and needs of most of those whose common ministry and mission has been compromised by the Episcopal Church’s actions over the past few years, especially those actions bound up in Gene Robinson’s consent and consecration and in the widespread performance of same-sex blessings in our church."

I expect that Lord Carey is holding his tongue, in public at least, and will not share his reaction to Columbus until Rowan Williams gives his analysis and response this week. The other person I'm keen to hear from this week is the chairman of the committee that produced the Windsor Report: the Archbiship of Armagh, Dr Robin Eames, who is also unlikely to speak until we hear the sunstantive response from Canterbury.