(Staff) Two more parishes in the Diocese of New Westminster are requesting permission to perform same-sex blessings. Currently Bishop Michael Ingham allows such blessings in eight parishes in the Vancouver-based diocese.

The votes were overwhelming: St. Mary’s Kerrisdale in Vancouver was 160-19, and the Church of the Holy Spirit in Whonnock, Maple Ridge (formerly St. John’s Whonnock) was 25-1. The Diocese reports that about two dozen blessings have been performed in the past five years.

In 2002, Diocesan Synod voted 215-129 for SSBs and Bishop Ingham assented. About 20 of the 38 Provinces in the global Anglican Communion declared themselves to be in “impaired” or “broken” communion with New Westminster over the action. 

In 2004 the Lambeth Commission appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury issued the Windsor Report. It declared that the actions of the Diocese of New Westminster were “one of the presenting causes for the current tensions within the Anglican Communion” (para.136), they constituted a “denial of the bonds of Communion” (para. 141), went “against the formally expressed opinions of the Instruments of Unity” (para. 143) and were a “breach of the legitimate application of the Christian faith as the churches of the Anglican Communion have received it” (para. 143).

The Canadian Church understood the Windsor Report to mean that no additional parishes be authorized as places of blessing at this time. Other Anglican Provinces understood the moratorium to be retroactive and that no parishes should perform these rites at all. 

Last June, General Synod refused to “affirm” that diocesan synods and bishops could authorize SSBs. However General Synod also narrowly voted that SSBs are “not in conflict with the core doctrine (in the sense of being credal)” of the Canadian Church.

Last December, Bishop Ingham reported to Diocesan Council that a panel of three lawyers who are expert in Canon (church) law gave an opinion that nothing the national Church had done at General Synod required that the Diocese end SSBs.

Since General Synod, the synods of three more dioceses in Canada – Ottawa, Montreal, and Niagara – have voted to ask their bishops to institute rites of blessing for couples who have been married by civil authorities, and the bishops have agreed. However, in these three dioceses, no rites have been issued and authorized yet.

The bishops of all three dioceses along with Bishop Ingham have been invited to Lambeth in July by the Archbishop of Canterbury even though their actions run counter to the resolutions on sexuality passed at the last Lambeth Conference held in 1998.