Friday, August 08, 2008

Who will blink first

http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/indepth/articles/who_will_blink_first/

[sydneyanglicans.net] 8 Aug 2008--The Episcopal Church (TEC) reactions to the Communique from the February Primates’ Meeting are fascinating. The Primates requested, among other things, the suspension of litigation over property issues against dioceses and parishes leaving the TEC (they are still going on); that no bishop authorise any service of blessing for same-sex unions; and they asked the TEC House of Bishops to confirm that candidates for Episcopal elections living in a same-sex relationship not receive the required consent for election.

The Primates asked the TEC Bishops to reply by 30 September this year, and then they concluded, “if the reassurances requested of the House of Bishops cannot in good conscience be given, the relationship between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion.”

What does that last sentence mean? No invitations to Lambeth? Being a ‘second tier’ member of the Communion? TEC responses have varied from the satisfaction of biblically orthodox Episcopalians to outrage from ‘liberal’ Episcopalians.

A well-known Washington journalist immediately suggested that the request not to authorise services for same-sex blessings only meant there couldn’t be official diocesan services, and that this didn’t mean they couldn’t happen.

Presiding Bishop Katherine Schori explained to TEC that they had been asked to enter a Lenten ‘season of fasting’ to refrain from blessing same-sex unions and from consecrating practising homosexual clergy as bishops. She seemed to imply that they refrain for a time, until the Primates and others eventually change their minds.

Originally published 26 March 2007.

No comments: