THE GENERAL Synod of the Church of Ireland has reaffirmed the church’s traditional teaching on marriage as “of one man with one woman”, while welcoming all people as members in a motion passed by two-to-one majority in Dublin on Saturday.
It also requested the standing committee to progress work on the issue of human sexuality and to bring proposals to next year’s synod for the formation of a select committee. It asked that it prepare terms of reference and include reporting procedures for that select committee.
The motion was proposed by Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson and the Bishop of Down and Dromore Harold Miller. It was supported by 81 clergy and 154 laity but opposed by 53 clergy and 60 laity.
When the general vote had been taken, the church’s bishops then voted also, by standing. All but the Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross Paul Colton and the Bishop of Cashel and Ossory Michael Burrows supported the motion.
The vote by the bishops was the sixth of the day and concluded proceedings which extended for 4½ hours, from approximately 10.30am until shortly after 3pm that afternoon.
Archbishop Jackson said that as bishops of the church they had the “firm and fervent desire of enabling members of our church to engage with what are some of the more complex, pressing and, to many, private aspects of contemporary life, understood from a sexual perspective.” The motion was “the next stage of engagement with one another around these issues”, he said.
Bishop Harold Miller said the motion had emerged “from the corporate thinking of the bishops” and was “all about creating a ‘safe place’ . . . for our ongoing conversation.”
Bishop Richard Clarke of Meath and Kildare recalled how he and Bishop Miller were on opposing sides at the 1998 Lambeth Conference in a resolution on sex, “but our relationship was never tainted, never damaged”.
He continued: “Friendships must never be broken on this . . . if Harold and I can do it, I think the rest of us can as well.”
Much discussion surrounded four proposed amendments to the main motion, all of which were defeated. Voting was by division, the first time this has been done at a General Synod since 1990 when the issue was women priests.
A form of the motion passed on Saturday had first been introduced at last Thursday’s session of the General Synod but was withdrawn by Synod president Archbishop Alan Harper, following a point of order. It was announced on Friday that the motion had been slightly modified and would be reintroduced with the debate and vote to take place on Saturday.
The motion emerged after a special two-day General Synod conference on human sexuality at the Slieve Russell hotel in Co Cavan on March 9th and 10th last.
It was called by the church’s bishops last October following disclosures the previous month that the Dean of Leighlin (Carlow), the Rev Tom Gordon, and his male partner of 20 years had entered a civil partnership last July.
Gay members of the Church of Ireland have reacted strongly against the General Synod decision. David McConnell of the church’s pro-gay Changing Attitude Ireland group said the motion had been presented with “unnecessary haste” and the decision to accept it “in controversial circumstances has added to, not reduced, the hurt and exclusion caused by the church to its gay and lesbian members”.
Gerry Lynch of the same group said that “the way the motion on sexuality was submitted and the vote itself confirmed many LGBT persons’ experience of the churches as the last bastion of homophobia”.
