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News and Ideas from around the Anglican World |
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September 2006
Episcopal Church moves apart from Communion
Sue Careless
Any hopes that the 77-million-member Anglican Communion could hang together after the consecration of an actively gay bishop three years ago were dashed this summer in America.
The 38 primates or leaders of the global fellowship had requested in the Windsor Report that the Episcopal Church of the USA “repent” of ordaining Gene Robinson in 2003 and promise a moratorium on any further such consecrations.
Instead, the newly named Episcopal Church (TEC) at its General
Convention in Columbus, Ohio in June said only that it would
“exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any
candidate [for bishop] whose manner of life presents a challenge to
However, within a week a cohabiting gay priest was nominated for the
bishop of Newark. This has outraged conservatives both in
An accomplished marine biologist and pilot, Schori, 52, was only
ordained a priest in 1994 and consecrated a bishop in 2001. She has
never been the rector of a church. She supports abortion, gay
clergy and the blessing of gay unions. During one convention
service Schori declared, “Our Mother Jesus gives birth to a new
creation. And you and I are His children.” Christ Church
in Plano,
After the liberal-dominated Convention failed to offer a stronger apology for Robinson’s ordination, seven conservative dioceses left TEC. The dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Springfield (Illinois), Central Florida, South Carolina and San Joaquin (California) requested that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, appoint an overseas primate to be their spiritual leader. The seventh, the diocese of Dallas, asked that it be cared for directly by Williams.
Williams was also dismayed by the Episcopal Church’s weak apology. For the past three years he has tried to keep everyone talking but now even he admits that the time for dialogue is over.
On June 27 Williams issued a paper that proposes a two-tier global Communion. Those churches that could sign a covenant on certain doctrinal issues including homosexuality would be “constituent churches” and those that could not, would be only “associated churches” of the Communion.
This would allow all the bishops of the Anglican Communion to attend the Lambeth Conference in England in 2008 as they do every ten years, although not all would be able to vote. But some Global South primates, such as Peter Akinola of Nigeria, are rejecting the Archbishop of Canterbury’s two-tier membership proposal and are talking of holding their own alternative Lambeth on African soil.
At its June synod, the Church of Nigeria, which has 17.5 million members, described the liberal churches in North America, which combined have less than 3 million members, as “a cancerous lump in the body” which “should be excised if it has defied every known cure. To attempt to condition the whole body to accommodate it will lead to the avoidable death of the patient.”
In June, 2007, the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) could pass a motion to permit the blessing of same-sex unions as a “local option” at its General Synod. Currently such rites are already practised in eight Vancouver area churches in the diocese of New Westminster, much to the alarm of conservative Anglicans in both Canada and the global Communion. Should such a resolution pass at the church’s national level the ACC would find itself reduced to an associate member in William’s membership plan or rejected outright by the Global South. |
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Copyright The Anglican Planet © 2006 |