Posted on 12/01/2003 9:24:08 AM PST by UnklGene
Church unity talks fail over 'gay' bishop -
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent (Filed: 01/12/2003)
Top level unity talks between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches have collapsed after the consecration of Anglicanism's first openly homosexual bishop.
In a bitter blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the Vatican is preparing to suspend the talks following a final meeting in the New Year.
That meeting was only rescued from a Vatican boycott by the dramatic resignation at the weekend of the senior Anglican participant, Bishop Frank Griswold.
The liberal bishop, who presides over the American Episcopal Church, split the Anglican Church this month by leading the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.
The consecration seriously damaged the Anglican Church's links with Orthodox and Muslim leaders as well as creating the impasse with Rome.
Dr Williams was personally warned by the Pope and other cardinals that the issue of homosexuality would jeopardise relations when he visited the Vatican in October. The Vatican, which is unequivocally opposed to homosexual activity, has indicated in recent weeks that its representatives could no longer share a platform with Bishop Griswold.
Officials have also complained that negotiations with the worldwide Anglican Church have become impossible because it lacks a leader with the authority to enforce agreements.
The indefinite suspension of the talks shelves an historic process begun in the 1960s by Pope Paul VI and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Michael Ramsey.
Relations were already strained over women priests, but the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission had produced a series of reports trying to resolve the doctrinal differences between the churches since the Reformation.
Bishop Griswold, who had been the Anglican co-chairman of ARCIC for two years, was deeply committed to the talks, but he nevertheless ignored pleas for him to distance himself from the consecration.
One ARCIC member, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham, the Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon, said its report on the Virgin Mary would have lost credibility if Bishop Griswold had continued his involvement.
The document is the last from ARCIC, which was due to be superseded by the International Anglican/Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission, set up by the Vatican and Dr Williams's predecessor, Dr George Carey.
Sources said yesterday that this body was expected to be suspended while Dr Williams tried to avert schism in the worldwide Anglican Church.
Bishop Griswold announced his resignation in a letter to Dr Williams, in which he acknowledged the strain that the consecration had "caused in the relationship between the Holy See and the Anglican Communion".
The Rev Richard Kirker, the general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said he regretted the decision. "Bishop Frank Griswold has been gracious in stepping down from this key post. The commission will be poorer without him."
As one would expect.
Myself, I had been attending an Episcopal church. I left it for a Catholic church because of this.
But, hey, the most important thing is that the homosexual agenda took a step forward. And that is the most important thing, right?
Is this like bombing the village in order to save it? I think the Church just blew itself up.
Only in their own minds.
In reality, it stirred up the opposition in what has been a bitter, decades-long controversy.
Perhaps we should thank God that this happened.
On the contrary. Now, instead of "merely" the threat of schism with the Anglican Communion (which the Queen wants to avoid at all costs), and the breakup of the Church of England, Williams is now threatened by a break with the Roman Catholics, and also the Orthodox Church.
All of that for the apostasy of Frank Griswold, Gene Robinson, and Canada'a Michael Ingham.
Williams' choices are fairly limited at this point: he can cast aside the "consenting bishops" of the ECUSA and Canada, thereby preserving the Communion; or he can side with the apostates, and destroy the Communion.
Also, we must remember that the Roman Catholic Church made its position on the ECUSA crystal clear when Cardinal Ratzinger issued, in JPII's name, a direct message of encouragement to the Plano meeting last October -- which ultimately set the ball rolling for Griswold's resignation from ARCIC.
In my mind it's fairly clear what's going to happen here. Williams will choose the unity of worldwide Christianity over the schismatic actions of the two North American provinces.
Where it goes from there is less clear, but it may well result in Griswold leading his faction of the ECUSA out of the Anglican Communion -- which leaves the orthodox among us to build a new Anglican province. (I think that would also end up handling the property issue, BTW.)
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