http://www.detnews.com/2005/religion/0507/02/A02-223782.htm
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
U.S. Anglicans back gay bishop's ordination
Some conservatives predict schism between churches in N. America and
those in Africa, Asia.
By Jill Lawless / Associated Press
NOTTINGHAM, England -- The U.S. Episcopal Church on Tuesday affirmed
its support for gay clergy, and appealed for the contentious issue not
to split the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion.
"We believe that God has been opening our eyes to acts of God that we
had not known how to see before," the church said in a document
prepared for the Anglican Consultative Council. It affirmed "the
eligibility for ordination of those in covenanted same-sex unions."
Some Anglican conservatives said that stance made a schism inevitable.
"There's going to be a divorce," said the Rev. Canon David Anderson,
president of the traditionalist American Anglican Council. "The
question is whether it's going to be a strictly North American divorce
or whether it's going to be Communionwide."
The issue of homosexuality has opened a rift between Anglican liberals
-- many of them in North America -- and conservatives, who are
strongest in Africa and Asia but include many North American
traditionalists. Many fear it is unbridgeable.
In February, leaders of the 38 national Anglican churches chastised
the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, asking
them not to attend this week's meeting of the Consultative Council, an
international body of bishops, priests and lay people that meets every
three years.
But Anglican leaders also asked the North American churches to send
representatives to explain the theological reasoning behind the
consecration of V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, and the
decision by the western Canadian diocese of New Westminster to
authorize the blessing of same-sex unions.
Official church policy declares gay sex "incompatible with scripture"
and opposes gay ordinations and same-sex blessings.
U.S. liberals and conservatives sat on opposite sides of a stifling
university auditorium at the meeting. The U.S. church presented its
position in a 130-page document, "To Set Our Hope on Christ." It said
"members of the Episcopal Church have discerned holiness in same-sex
relationships and have come to support the blessing of such unions and
the ordination or consecration of persons in those unions."
© 2005 Associated Press
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Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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