c. 2005 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) The bishops of the Episcopal Church formally apologized Thursday (Jan. 13) for the “pain, hurt and damage” caused by the consecration of an openly gay bishop but stopped short of saying the action was wrong.
The bishops, after a two-day meeting in Salt Lake City, issued their first collective response to a high-level report released two months ago by the Anglican Communion that called on the U.S. church to apologize.
“Knowing that our actions have contributed to the current strains in our Communion, we express this regret as a sign of our deep desire for and commitment to continuation of our partnership in the Anglican Communion,” the bishops said.
The statement signals that the U.S. church remains defiant in its support for the 2003 election of openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, and remains cool to the idea of a moratorium on other gay bishops or an outright ban on the blessing of same-sex unions.
The church’s top officer, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, declined to offer a stronger apology or answer his critics’ call to “repent” of his support of Robinson. “It’s very difficult to apologize for an action when those who took part in it believe it was under the leading of the Holy Spirit,” he said in a phone interview.
The Episcopal Church, as the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, has been harshly criticized by other Anglican churches and American traditionalists for its support of Robinson.
At the same time, a group of 21 conservative bishops issued a dissent, urging the church toward a more sincere apology and a promise not to make any more decisions that aren’t “fully compatible with the interests, standards, unity and good order” of the global church.
Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, leader of the church’s conservative wing, said liberals would eventually isolate themselves from the broader Anglican Communion unless they temper their support of gay issues.
“The majority has the power to coerce the minority and even put us out,” Duncan said, “but in so doing, they ensure their destruction.”
A report issued last October by Irish Archbishop Robin Eames chastised the U.S. church for breaching “the proper constraints of the bonds of affection” in the Communion. It called for a moratorium on other gay bishops and same-sex blessings but declined to recommend strong sanctions against the Americans.
The Eames report will be considered next month by the primates, or chief bishops, of the Communion’s 38 provinces in a meeting next month in Northern Ireland. The U.S. bishops will reconvene in March.
In their statement, the bishops said they had “extensive discussion” of a moratorium but said they have not had “sufficient time” to develop a concrete plan. “We have only begun a serious and respectful consideration of how we might respond,” they said.
In their statement, the bishops noted that the U.S. church is more democratic than other Anglican churches and said they could not “pre-empt” the will of lay members and clergy, who supported Robinson by wide margins. Griswold said it is a critical distinction that other Anglican churches don’t always grasp.
“There are those who can’t understand why I didn’t veto the (Robinson) ordination, because in their system the archbishop has the power of veto,” he said. “To learn that I didn’t have that power, for some people, was a startling revelation.”
As a signal of his support for gay clergy, Griswold has convened a committee to answer the Eames report’s request for a rationale for gay bishops. Griswold has named Mark McIntosh, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, to lead the group, which will include at least two bishops.
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