Post by Moses on Feb 25, 2005 7:18:59 GMT -5
February 25, 2005
Anglican Leaders Seek Move to Avoid Schism
By NEELA BANERJEE and BRIAN LAVERY
Leaders of the global Anglican communion have asked the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw their representatives temporarily from a key governing body of the denomination, in an unprecedented move to avoid a schism over the American church's consecration of an openly gay man as a bishop and both churches' blessing of same-sex unions.
The Rev. Jan Nunley, a spokeswoman in New York for the Episcopal Church, said no decision had yet been made on the request. She said the church's presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, would talk to the three representatives to the Anglican governing body next week about it.
Canon James Rosenthal, of the Anglican Communion Office in London, said no response had been received from the North American churches.
While they have been asked not to attend the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in June, the American and Canadian churches may be invited to send guest representatives to explain their stance on homosexuality.
"No one has ever actually heard, clearly, what their position is," Canon Rosenthal said.
The request was in a communiqué at the end of a weeklong meeting in Newry, Northern Ireland, that involved nearly all the primates of national and regional churches that constitute the Anglican communion, whose 77 million members worldwide share a common heritage in the Church of England.
The annual meeting was regularly scheduled, but the main task facing the 35 primates who attended was fashioning a response to a report last fall that examined the North American churches' decisions on homosexuality, their impact on the global communion and the options of continuing as one denomination in light of fierce opposition among many other national churches to the moves.
The request to withdraw representatives from the June meeting was meant to appease critics, including many bishops in Africa, Asia and Latin America, who wanted a sharper rebuke of the North American churches than the fall report offered, members of the Episcopal clergy and experts on the church said.
Before the Newry meeting, many members of the clergy worried that the conservative bishops might walk out in protest of what they had criticized as the communion's lenient handling of the North American churches.
But another part of the communiqué also buys the North American churches time to respond to the report's recommendations, like reconsidering the decisions on homosexuality, without facing graver threats.
"This is a very, very testing time" for the Anglican Church, a spokesman said.
Of the invitation to the churches to withdraw, the spokesman, who would not allow his name to be used, said: "It's not a demand, but a request. It must be remembered that the leaders of those churches have been part of this meeting."
In a written statement, Bishop Griswold alluded to how difficult this apparent compromise might be for some to accept.
"These days have not been easy for any of us," he said, "and the communiqué reflects a great deal of prayer and the strong desire to find a way forward as a communion in the midst of deep differences which have been brought into sharp relief around the subject of homosexuality. Clearly, all parts of the communiqué will not please everyone."
Conservatives may think that the exclusion of the North American churches is not a stiff-enough punishment for defying the communion's overall position on homosexuality, said the Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, a professor of mission and world Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.
And liberals may think that the request is a way of circumscribing the autonomy of the communion's national and regional churches, Dr. Douglas said.
But in general he said he thought the communiqué carved out a sound position that reduced the threat of a split in the church. "I think it is a well-articulated, nuanced communiqué that generally expresses the desire of Anglicans the world over to remain in communion," Dr. Douglas said. "There is clearly more that holds us together than divides us."
The communiqué was released a day earlier than scheduled, which would give primates on various sides of the issues time to craft statements, church experts said.
But the fact that conservative bishops like the head of the Nigerian church helped draw it up indicated that a rupture had, for the time being, been avoided. The action could remain in effect until the communion's next Lambeth Conference, in 2008.
The Anglican communion accepts gays in its pews and celibate gays into its clergy, but for decades has grappled with other roles for homosexuals.
The Episcopal Church's decision in 2003 to consecrate V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire and the blessing of same-sex unions by a Canadian diocese was seen by many primates, especially in the developing world, as undermining a broad consensus within the communion to refrain from such steps, the communiqué said.
The communiqué urged the North American churches' leaders to persuade their dioceses to place a moratorium on similar actions in the near future.
In the United States, at least, that should not be a problem, Dr. Douglas contended, saying,
"My guess is that dioceses in the U.S., after the consecration of Gene Robinson, have a greater understanding of what our decisions mean to the global communion."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company