Christians reacted with shock this week as the global conglomerate of Anglican churches voted overwhelmingly at a Primates meeting in Canterbury to sanction the US Episcopal Church for affirming same-sex marriage. History buffs and viewers of PBS’s “Wolf Hall” will remember that Henry was upset over another marriage – his to Queen Catharine of Aragon, which Rome would not dissolve so he could marry his mistress, Ann Boleyn. There are almost 85 million members of the communion with 1.8 million represented in the United States. Part of that process may be the next Lambeth conference, the once-a-decade gathering of Anglican leaders, which he announced will take place in 2020.
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“While these actions by the Primates of the Anglican Communion may affect relationships between The Episcopal Church and parts of the Anglican Communion, they do not affect the mission, ministry or service of our Church or our diocese”, Konieczny wrote.
Divisions were still evident in the shadow of the great cathedral in Canterbury, where demonstrators, many of them from conservative communities in Africa, waved signs and sang, hoping to get Welby’s attention and challenge the communion to consider their rights.
“But the American church has made it completely clear through our presiding bishop that these sanctions are not going to have an impact on our choices about how we treat gay and lesbian, bisexuals and transgender people, and it’s not going to stop us from having committed ourselves to marriage equality”.
The three-year suspension will be revisited in 2018, when the Episcopal Church’s next general convention is scheduled.
The dramatic demotion follows a string of Episcopal Church decisions stretching back to 2003, when it elected Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as a bishop of New Hampshire. The statement avoided using words like “sanctions” and “punishment”; conservatives had wanted the liberals not merely to be punished but called on to repent. Six U.S. dioceses left the Episcopal Church and aligned themselves with member churches as far away as Nigeria. “We simply said, if any province, on a major issue of how the church is run or what it believes, is out of line, there will be consequences in their full participation in the life of the communion”. Can it continue? Will it continue? Episcopalians and breakaway Anglicans in Falls Church were embattled over tens of millions of dollars in property, a court dispute which the Episcopal Church eventually won.
The top body of the Anglican Church of Canada is scheduled to vote in July on a proposal that would authorize gay marriage.
The Jan. 11-15 meeting brought together 39 Anglican primates to reflect on the challenges posed to the unity of their communion.
Q: How do the “sides” in the debate break down? Each congregation is able to discuss whether or not they want to offer marriage for people of the same sex. “The sanctions against the Episcopal Church are trifling compared to what LGBT Christians suffer, and we shouldn’t be whining about the nature of the sanctions”, he said.
Meanwhile, the Archbishop of one of those breakaway groups, The Anglican Church in North America, was at the Canterbury meeting this week and was fully involved in the discussions although he did not vote.
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The American church, similar to other religious dominations, have had a declining membership in recent years. More significantly, its archbishop, Foley Beach, participated in the Canterbury meeting, despite the fact his denomination is not a voting member of the communion.
