Posted on 04/17/2007 9:44:27 PM PDT by Huber
Same-sex conflict tearing church apart, leader says A vote to accept church blessing of gay unions'will cause problems' TORONTO -- The spiritual head of the world's 77 million Anglicans acknowledged yesterday that his church has been sapped by its bitter conflict over homosexuality and may well face irreconcilable differences that could lead to its breakup.
Speaking in Toronto, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said that if Canadian Anglicans vote in two months' time to authorize church blessing of same-sex unions, "I don't think it takes rocket science to work out that this will cause problems."
At the same time, he moved to diffuse tensions with the Canadian church's liberal twin in the world Anglican Communion -- the U.S. Episcopal Church -- by announcing he will meet with its bishops. The Americans have been pressing for an urgent conference since February when senior Anglican archbishops imposed an ultimatum on them to turn back from their inclusive policy toward homosexuals.
He also told Anglican divinity students at the University of Toronto in a closed meeting that he found unacceptable a draft covenant presented to the senior archbishops, or primates, that would allow the communion to boot out member churches deemed to have stepped out of line doctrinally on issues such as sexuality. Such a move would be a first in Anglicanism's 400-year-old history.
But he rejected a suggestion made earlier by the Canadian primate, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, that he defer next year's world gathering of Anglican bishops -- the decennial Lambeth Conference -- at which differences will be underscored between the liberal wings of Anglicanism and the more conservative churches in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Anglican Communion is the world's third-largest Christian denomination, after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Dr. Williams is paying his first visit to Canada as its spiritual leader.
Yesterday, he was granted honorary degrees by University of Toronto's two Anglican colleges, Trinity and Wycliffe, and met with divinity students. He then delivered a careful theological lecture on how to read and interpret scripture -- an issue at the heart of the homosexuality dispute.
Today in Niagara Falls, Ont., he will lead a day-long religious retreat for Canadian bishops.
The Communion is not a monolithic structure like the Catholic Church. It is a federation of 38 autonomous national and regional churches called provinces, each headed by an elected primate. Unlike the Pope, who is Catholicism's chief executive officer, the Archbishop of Canterbury is merely considered primus inter pares -- first among equals -- with other primates.
At their meeting in Tanzania in February, the primates issued a communiqué giving the Episcopal Church until Sept. 30 to pledge not to approve same-sex blessings or appoint gay bishops and to allow foreign bishops to provide spiritual oversight for conservative Episcopalians who don't like the direction in which their church is going.
The U.S. church's bishops rejected the ultimatum last month.
The Canadian church will decide in June when its general synod, or governing body, meets in Winnipeg, whether to approve local options at the diocesan level for the blessing of same-sex unions.
"My hope is that whatever decision is made will be made out of a resolution to maintain the highest degree of union in the church and [a concern] for what level of consensus is needed for the church to go forward," Dr. Williams said at a news conference yesterday.
"These are complicated days for our church," he said. "I am steering and pastoring a church in the process of discernment [trying to achieve understanding and insight into itself]," he said.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. So that's the problem...the ABC wants discipline but no enforcement. I don't get the hesitation...if these churches teach heresy, they should be excommunicated. That's the way the Church has always worked.
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