Scottish Anglican’s call for “gracious restraint”: CEN 3.27.09 p 8. March 29, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue, Scottish Episcopal Church.trackback
The Scottish Episcopal Church will honor the Lambeth call for “gracious restraint” and refrain from authorizing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions, not permit the consecration of a non-celibate gay bishop, nor engage in “cross-border” violations of diocesan boundaries.
In a statement released on behalf of the Scottish College of Bishops on March 23 by the Primus, Bishop Idris Jones of Glasgow and Galloway, the bishops offered a response to the communiqué from the Alexandria primates’ meeting and to the “Anglican moratoria.”
The college welcomed “the fact that the Priamtes were able to talk honestly and openly together” in Alexandria, and that “despite the alienation and pain felt by many parts of the Communion, there was nevertheless a spirit of graciousness in evidence.”
While recognizing the truth of the “Lambeth Indaba” document that stated “there is widespread support” for an Anglican moratoria, the Scottish bishops stated that “in practice,” there will be “difficulties in the moratoria being upheld across the Communion.” The bishops also stated their discomfort with the phrase “moratoria,” noting that it implied a “temporary suspension of activity which had previously been current.”
The Scottish College of Bishops pledged to honour the ban on gay bishops, writing “that, for the time being, all who have responsibility within the process of the election of any new diocesan bishop should seek to act within the spirit of the requested moratorium.”
The Scottish Episcopal Church was not of one mind on this issue. However, the “repercussions of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson” were severe, and that a further consecration “could reasonably be expected to have a very significant impact on the life and position of the Province within the Anglican Communion.”
Bishop Jones, who on March 4 announced that he would be retiring from office at the end of July, stated the Scottish Church distinguished between pastoral blessings of same-sex unions and liturgical or sacramental rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. The Scottish bishops “expressed its gladness to note that the concern of the Windsor Report and of the Primates’ Communiqué issued in February 2005 had not been with such informal pastoral responses to individual situations but was rather about the official authorization of a liturgical text for the blessing [gay] unions.”
Nonetheless, the “fluidity in the debate” and the divisions within the Scottish Church on this issue were such that “at the current time, members of the College remain of the view that it would, certainly be premature, and some would say wrong, to authorize a rite for such blessings.”
The question of cross-border incursions was not a live issue for the Scottish church “as no member” of the College of Bishops had engaged in the practice and the College believed that the communion’s existing ecclesial boundaries “should be observed.”
