US: An Anglican commission has recommended that the Episcopal Church (US) apologise for ordaining a gay man Bishop of New Hampshire and that it refrain from carrying out similar actions again until consensus on the issue of gay clergy is arrived at in the broader Anglican Communion internationally.
It also recommended that those who took part in the relevant consecration ceremony last November should withdraw from representative roles in the Anglican Communion.
Where public rites of blessing of same sex unions in Canada were concerned it made the same recommendations.
The commission, chaired by the Church of Ireland Primate of All-Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames, was set up in October 2003 following a meeting in London of 38 primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The emergency meeting was prompted by a decision of the New Hampshire diocese to appoint Canon Gene Robinson, a gay man, as its bishop.
The consecration of Canon Robinson went ahead, despite anxieties that this was not in line with Anglican understanding, and as expressed at the primates' meeting. That meeting followed also on a decision by the diocese of New Westminster in Canada to approve a rite of blessing for same sex unions in June of last year. In May of last year a celibate gay man, Canon Jeffrey John, was chosen to become Bishop of Reading in England, but declined the post following an outcry.
Fierce opposition to the idea of gay clergy emerged as a result, particularly among Anglican churches in Africa, some in Australia and New Zealand, and latterly, among more conservative Anglicans in the US.
Following a year's consultation with interested parties internationally, the commission's 'Windsor Report' was published in London yesterday.
It also called on "those diocesan bishops of the Episcopal Church (USA) who have refused to countenance the proposals set out by their House of Bishops to reconsider their own stance on this matter. If they refuse to do so, in our view, they will be making a profoundly dismissive statement about their adherence to the polity of their own church".
It said the North American Anglicans concerned "have not attached sufficient importance to the impact of their decisions on other parts of the Communion. This in turn has prompted reactions from other provinces and individual primates which offend our understanding of communion in significant ways".
In its conclusions, the report called on "all parties to the current dispute to seek ways of reconciliation, and to heal our divisions" and said it "would expect all provinces to respond with generosity and charity to any such actions".
However, acknowledging the gravity of the situation, it said "there remains a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together. Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart. We would much rather not speculate on actions that might need to be taken if, after acceptance by the primates, our recommendations are not implemented.
"However, we note that there are, in any human dispute, courses that may be followed: processes of mediation and arbitration; non-invitation to relevant representative bodies and meetings; invitation, but to observer status only; and, as an absolute last resort, withdrawal from membership..."
