Sapphic Suffragan Showdown

What the heck happened in LA last night, folks might want to know? In the seventh Ballot, The Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool (left) was elected as the second bishop suffragan (an assistant bishop who does not automatically succeed a diocesan bishop as a Bishop coadjutor does). Bishop-elect Glasspool is an eminently-qualified candidate. The catch: she is a lesbian in a committed relationship - the first GLBT person elected to the episcopate since Gene Robinson in 2003. So what happens now? Let's review:

1. The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson was elected as the bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, which caused a huge bruhaha in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The ultimate results were the Windsor Report, several Primates' Meetings, and a lot of angst. The formation of the "Anglican Church in America" was also a tangential result, although that break had been forming over women's ordination and Prayer Book revision for a long time.


2. The 2006 General Convention passed resolution B033, which called "upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion." Some of us thought this resolution was too vague, as everybody knew who was being asked to sacrifice, and this wording seemed to paste over that.


3. The 2009 General Convention passed resolution D025, which may or may not have repealed B033, depending on who you talk to. As I reported at the time, the general understanding in the House of Bishops as articulated by the Presiding Bishop was that D025 did not repeal B033.

So now that we're caught up, what happens? The next thing that must happen for Bishop-Elect Glasspool to be consecrated is for a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and a majority of the church's standing committees to consent to her election. Whether or not that will happen is anyone's guess, but seems likely, since uncertainty about the status of B033 will at least loosen resolve among some moderates. What happens then with the Anglican Communion is really up in the air. There is currently no mechanism for removing a member church from the Anglican Communion, as the Anglican Covenant process is still working itself out and will probably still take several years to complete. However, Rowan Williams has already written of his concern:

The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.

The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.

The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.

So - That's the situation for now - now from news to opinion...

I am at this point moving from befuddlement to anger with Rowan Williams. This is difficult for me, as I respect his work as a scholar and a spiritual man. My anger comes from the apparent and obvious discrepancy over how the differing sides of this conflict are being treated. Until this election, the buzz in the communion was the legislation currently being considered in Uganda that will make homosexual actions punishable by law, in some cases by execution. Where this comes into the story of the communion is that the Anglican Church of Uganda (Which has strong connections to American conservative groups and some member congregations of ACNA) is actively promoting the legislation. This stands in stark opposition to repeated resolutions of the Lambeth Conference and the Primates' Meetings that make it clear that the official communion position is that GLBT persons should not be demonized or persecuted.

Members of the Communion have been asking Lambeth to speak out against the involvement of the Ugandan Church. So far, the response has been deafening silence. Williams' office said several days ago that

"attempts to publicly influence either the local church or political opinion in Uganda would be divisive and counter productive. Our contacts, at both national and diocesan level, with the local church will therefore remain intensive but private”.

So, if a member church is supporting legislation in opposition to Lambeth teachings that will result in imprisonments and executions, it is better if the Communion remains publicly silent. But if a member church is electing a person living in a monogamous, same-sex relationship since 1988 as a bishop, public statements must be issued within twelve hours? The discrepancy and hypocrisy is really hard to swallow on this one.

I am a big believer in the importance of the Communion, but even I have to ask the question, "If the Communion cannot have the moral authority to speak out publicly on such an amazingly egregious violation of human rights, what is the point of a communion?" As Andrew Brown writes in his blog at the Guardian:

What makes his difficulty darkly comic rather than tragic is the speed with which he has reacted to the election of a lesbian assistant bishop in Los Angeles. A statement came out of his office less than 12 hours later urging the Americans not to proceed.

Consider the case of two Anglicans of the same gender who love one another. If they are in the USA, the Anglican church will marry them and may elect one of them to office. If they are in Uganda, the Anglican church will try to have them jailed for life, and ensure that any priest who did not report them to the authorities within 24 hours would be jailed for three years; anyone who spoke out in their defense might be jailed for seven.

Under Williams, the church that marries two women who love each other is to be thrown out of the Anglican Communion. The church that would jail them both for life, and would revile and persecute their defenders, stays snugly in his bosom. Not even the Archbishop’s remarkable gift for obfuscation can conceal these facts forever.

I couldn't articulate it better.

David+

Technorati Tags: Anglican, Christianity, Episcopal, Religion, homosexuality, rowan williams

Comments

[Susan]

The Archbishop of Canterbury has finally made himself totally irrelevant. When it is more important to remain mum about obvious human rights abuses in favor of stamping your foot at the "Sapphic" Suffragan, he is showing me that the Anglican Communion he proports to lead is tainted. Repent and return to God, ++Rowan!

[Rachel]

Well said!