More Gay Anglicans?

In a news story from Catholic Online, it turns out that the US Episcopal Church has quite a few other partnered gay bishops, the only difference is that Gene Robinson is quite open about it.

NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews.com) - The head of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Bishop Jefferts Schori, shocked listeners of a BBC Interview when she announced that Gene Robinson - the controversial Episcopalian bishop who was consecrated bishop despite his being an openly practicing homosexual - is not the only homosexual and partnered bishop in the Anglican Church.

"[Robinson] is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop," Schori said in response to a question from her interviewer. "He is certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop. He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status."

The interviewer then asked Schori whether she meant that Robinson was not the only gay, partnered bishop in the Episcopalian Church. She responded, "Within our own church and within the Anglican Communion as a whole."

I can bet she's not referring to those other bishops who voted to break away from the US Episcopal Church. Or maybe she is. After all, I know my younger siblings like to call things they don't like as "gay", so maybe she meant that a lot of those other bishops are gay in that sense.

This, of course, comes on the heels of the upcoming conference of the worldwide Anglicans. What this says is that the US Church basically wants to openly flaunt traditional morality, which the Communion wants to uphold. "See, our bishops are practicing gays, so it must be okay, right?"

A number of the bishops who have called the so-called Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFC) have in the past suggested that the American Episcopalian Church should not be invited to the Lambeth conference, due to its decision to consecrate Robinson bishop, and a general movement on the part of the Episcopalian Church to accept and bless homosexual behavior.

Schori said that this idea felt to her "much like declining an invitation to a dinner party because somebody I don't like might be there. My understanding of the planned program for the Lambeth Conference is one that has the possibility of letting people build relationships. I think that's a remarkable gift. I think it would be very sad to go there and simply spend all our time consumed by legislation and I don't think that's what's planned."

I guess you have to expect this when your spokesbishop is of the fairer gender. (This is where I get myself in trouble) The bishops are meeting to hold together the disintegrating Anglican Communion, and she wants to build relationships. Maybe if those bishops spent less time "building relationships" and more time protecting the fidelity of their faith, we wouldn't be in this state at all.

When pressed by the BBC interviewer as to whether or not Schori supported those bishops and priests who were blessing homosexual couples despite pressure from Canterbury to cease all such ceremonies, Schori side-stepped the question, answering, "That's not a matter for me to say yea or nay, it's a matter of pastoral practice in individual congregations, in the same way that I don't enter into decisions about whether or not it's appropriate to bless a fleet of battleships going off to war."

Schori also seemed to suggest that support for homosexual behavior was consonant with the traditional position, the "roots" of the Anglican Church, saying, "My hope is that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole might remember our roots, our traditional valuing of diversity and our traditional sense that worshiping together despite differing views is what holds us together."

Is this as laughable to you as it is to me? Isn't she the equivalent of the Bishop-Primate. Doesn't that make it a matter of her to say yea or nay? Isn't the point of the communion the fact that the Faith is not up to the individual congregations? Maybe I missed the point of even having bishop(ess)es.

Also, where in the "roots" of the Anglican Church were there diversity and gay marriage? Time for a history lesson. The Anglican Church started in England when the King wanted an annulment, and didn't get one from Rome. They were made up of Englanders, and kept out Catholics. In fact, they persecuted them. There was no "worshiping together despite differing views." You never heard an Anglican say "I don't care that you think the Pope has primacy, let's break bread together."

Maybe this is just another sign that the Anglicans are going to implode. The traditional ones no longer have much reason to be anything but Catholic, and we'll take them. Traditional Christianity is just what the Church in America needs. The goofy ones can stay whatever they are.