Irish warning to Episcopal Church over Glasspool election: The Church of England Newspaper, April 9, 2010 p 6.

Archbishop Alan Harper of Armagh, Primate of All-Ireland

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Primate of All-Ireland has expressed his exasperation with the Episcopal Church, writing in the April 1 issue of the Church of Ireland Gazette that the affirmation of the election of Canon Mary Glasspool has the potential to wreck the Anglican Communion.

The Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Alan Harper also sent a shot across the Episcopal Church’s bow, warning that the Church of Ireland would be in communion with those churches with whom it shares a common doctrine and discipline, as outlined in its Declaration of 1870.

Dr. Harper wrote that he had received a letter from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announcing the affirmation of the election of Canon Glasspool as suffragan bishop in Los Angeles.  He noted that in her letter, the presiding bishop declared that “this is not the decision of one person, or a small group of people.  It represents the mind of a majority of the elected leaders in The Episcopal Church, lay, clergy and bishops, who have carefully considered the opinions and feelings of other members of the Anglican Communion as well as the decades-long conversations within this Church.”

This action violated the recommendations of the Windsor Report and the requests of the Primates Meetings in Dar es Salaam and Alexandria that the Episcopal Church exercise “gracious restraint” over the issues of gay bishops and blessings, Dr. Harper said.

“The decision of The Episcopal Church in respect of the confirmation of an election and subsequent consecration of a partnered gay person to the episcopate has clearly signalled the end of ‘gracious restraint’,” he said.

“This is a development which I deeply regret. Whatever may be ‘the mind of a majority of the elected leaders in The Episcopal Church’, it does not reflect the mind of a majority of those in positions of leadership in the Anglican Communion and it is bound to create even greater stresses within the Communion at a time when consultations on an Anglican Covenant are at an advanced stage,” Dr. Harper said.

The Glasspool vote would strain the “bonds of affection within the Communion” and lead to further “extraterritorial interventions by other provinces in the life of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.”

The call for restraint on the “authorization of public rites of blessing for same-sex unions” and for a halt to “extraterritorial interventions” had not been heeded, he noted.  And now the Communion was witnessing the “setting up of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), an overtly extra-territorial province-in-embryo, embracing the national integrities of both the United States of America and Canada.”

Dr. Harper said that it was “very hard to see” where this would lead, but noted the position of the Church of Ireland “in respect of the Churches with which it may be said to be ‘in communion’ will be determined, first and foremost, in light of the provisions of the Preamble and Declaration prefixed to the Statutes of the Church of Ireland passed at the General Convention in 1870. It will also be governed by the response of the Church of Ireland to any future Anglican Covenant.”

“Communion” for the Church of Ireland is not defined by a relationship with the office or person of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but by common doctrine and discipline articulated in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion, and “professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds.”

Section III of the Declaration states the Church of Ireland “will maintain communion with the sister Church of England, and with all other Christian Churches agreeing in the principles of this declaration.”