Many Episcopalians
Wary, Some Defiant
After Ultimatum by
Anglicans
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN,
NYTimes on the Web, February 21, 2007
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Robert Caplin for The New York Times
Bishop
Mark Sisk of New York. |
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There was a time when the Episcopal
Church in the United States was known as “the Republican Party at prayer,” but
in the last 30 years it has evolved into the Rainbow Coalition of Christianity.
There are hip-hop Masses, American Indian rituals to install a new presiding
bishop and legions of gay and straight priests who don the rainbow stoles of gay
liberation. Its pews are full of Roman Catholics and Christians from other
traditions attracted by its aura of radical acceptance.
Now the conservatives who numerically dominate the global Anglican Communion
have handed their Episcopal branch in the United States an ultimatum that
requires the church to reel in the rainbow if it wants to remain a part of the
Communion.
With a communiqué issued in Tanzania on Monday after a five-day meeting, the
leaders of Anglican provinces around the world (known as primates) asked the
United States branch to bar gay men and lesbians from becoming bishops, and to
stop official blessings of same-sex unions. The communiqué even specified
a deadline: Sept. 30.
There is no certainty that Episcopal leaders will now comply. In
interviews yesterday, some liberal and moderate leaders who constitute a
majority in the American church voiced everything from confusion to serious
misgivings to defiance. Many took umbrage at what they saw as meddling by
foreign primates who are imposing their culture and theological interpretations
on the American church.
“Being part of the Anglican Communion is very important to me,” said Bishop Mark
S. Sisk of New York. “But if the price of that is I have to turn my back
on the gay and lesbian people who are part of this church and part of me, I
won’t do that.”
On her way home from the meeting in Tanzania, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new
presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, wrote three pages of “Reflections on
the Primates Meeting” that were released late yesterday.
Many in her church had been eager to hear her explain why she signed onto the
communiqué, when she, as much as anyone, is clearly a product of the church’s
inclusive rainbow culture. In her former diocese in Nevada, she allowed
the blessing of same-sex unions and consented to the election of V. Gene
Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. She is
the first woman to be presiding bishop, and the first woman primate in the
Anglican communion.
In her “reflections,” Bishop Jefferts Schori struck a tone of respect for those
on both sides, “Both parties hold positions that can be defended by appeal to
our Anglican sources of authority — Scripture, tradition and reason — but each
finds it very difficult to understand and embrace the other.”
She suggested that the struggle for equality for gay men and lesbians would
eventually prevail, just as the slaves in Africa were eventually freed — an
occasion she and the other primates commemorated last Sunday at a ceremony at
the Cathedral in Zanzibar, the site of a former slave-trading market.
Bishop Jefferts Schori concluded by noting that Lent was about to begin, and
said that both sides in this conflict were being asked to undergo a “season of
fasting”; the liberals from blessing same-sex unions and consecrating gay
bishops, and the conservative primates from “transgressing diocesan boundaries,”
which is what happened when some primates from Africa, Asia and Latin America
recently tried taking control of conservative parishes in the United States that
elected to leave the Episcopal Church.
Conservatives in the church were also wary about the communiqué’s plan but were
generally far more upbeat than the liberals.
The communiqué recommends that the Episcopal Church establish new positions of
authority, a council and a “primatial vicar,” who will have oversight of the
conservatives within the Episcopal Church, so they do not have to turn to
primates from other countries.
Bishop D. Bruce MacPherson of Western Louisiana, who addressed the primates in
Tanzania on behalf of the conservatives, said of the communiqué’s
recommendations, “I believe it to be the beginning of a process, a mechanism
that will enable us to work toward healing and reconciliation.”
Bishop MacPherson said he expected that the House of Bishops would meet in March
to take up the communiqué’s recommendations, and that the bishops alone would
have the authority to decide whether to accept them.
But already there were questions from Episcopalians who said that such
significant decisions as a moratorium on gay bishops and blessings, and the
creation of a council and primatial vicar, could not be taken by the House of
Bishops alone, but by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which
includes lay and clergy delegates. The General Convention, however, does
not meet this year and is not scheduled for another meeting until 2009.
The communiqué calls for the House of Bishops to “make an unequivocal common
covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex
unions.”
Some liberals yesterday were latching on to what they saw as a loophole because
the wording specified that the bishops would not “authorize” rites. There
are many bishops who have not formally authorized ceremonial rites for gay
unions, but who nevertheless allow priests to perform them. If this is all
the communiqué is requiring, they suggested, the Episcopal Church can live with
that.
“Blessings happen, sure,” said Bishop Sisk of New York. “But I didn’t
authorize them.”
Bishop MacPherson, however, said that his understanding is that the communiqué
asks the bishops to actually stop the performing of same-sex blessings in their
dioceses.
The most despairing reactions came from gay men and lesbians in the church, who
say this is not reconciliation, but capitulation.
“They’re trying to make people choose between the Communion and the church’s
commitment to gay and lesbian people,” said the Rev. Michael Hopkins, a priest
in Rochester and the former president of Integrity, a long-established
organization of gay and lesbian Episcopalians.
Although the Episcopal Church is known as an inclusive haven, Mr. Hopkins said,
he already knows gay men and lesbians who are leaving. He said, “People
like me can only convince other people to hang in there for so long.”
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