Article Added On: March 16, 2005 - over 3 years ago
Title: US Anglican Leaders Will Defer Appointing Bishops
Author: Michael Conlon
Publication: Reuters/metronews.ca
Publication Date: January 01, 2005 - over 3 years ago
Faith Groups: Anglicans
Themes: same sex marriage/blessing

Abstract: U.S. Episcopalian bishops have decided not to appoint any new bishops at all or bless same-sex unions for at least the next year.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. Episcopalian bishops, under fire for consecrating the church's first openly gay bishop, have decided not to appoint any new bishops at all or bless same-sex unions for at least the next year.

The bishops called the move an "extraordinary action" designed to provide time for healing and discussion and to "re-claim and strengthen" fractured ties with the 77-million-member Anglican church worldwide.

But it left unresolved the central question which has torn the church since 2003 -- whether consecrating an openly gay bishop was a legitimate move in the first place.

The prelates, winding up a six-day retreat and meeting in Texas, issued a statement late on Tuesday that also repeated an expression of "deep regret for the pain that others have experienced" because of actions taken in 2003 that led to the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. He is the church's first bishop known to be in a same-sex relationship.

The leaders of the 2.3-million-member U.S. church also at that time issued a statement recognizing that blessings of same-sex unions were taking place but not authorizing any rites or approving of them.

The statement came less than a month after worldwide Anglican leaders meeting in Northern Ireland asked the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to voluntarily withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council -- a key representative body of the world church.

'REMAIN IN COMMUNION'

In the statement from Texas the bishops said they wanted to reaffirm "our continuing commitment to remain in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and to participate fully in the Anglican Consultative Council."

Last year the world church leaders issued the Windsor Report, which urged the Americans to apologize for ordaining Robinson without consulting other Anglicans first.

The report also asked the U.S. church to consider a moratorium on consecrating any more bishops in openly gay relationships until the church adopts a global policy on the matter. And it recommended that there be a hold on the blessing of same-sex unions.

The bishops said they would defer consecrating any bishops at all until at least June of 2006 when the church's General Convention holds its triennial meeting.

The bishops also said they "pledge not to authorize any public rites for the blessing of same sex unions, and we will not bless any such unions, at least until" the '06 meeting.

In addition the bishops urged Anglicans elsewhere in the world who hold opposite views on the gay issues to refrain from intervening in U.S. churches to recruit the faithful away from the U.S. church.

Instead, they said, other bishops should "work with us to find more creative solutions, such as the initiation of companion diocese relationships, to help us meet the legitimate needs of our own people and still maintain our integrity."

African church leaders in particular fear that if Anglicanism takes a lenient line on homosexuality, its followers will desert its pews for more conservative Christian churches or Islam.