Nottingham, England – The U.S. Episcopal Church on Tuesday affirmed its support for gay clergy, and appealed for the issue not to split the 77 million- strong Anglican Communion.
“We believe that God has been opening our eyes to acts of God that we had not known how to see before,” the church said in a document prepared for the Anglican Consultative Council. It affirmed “the eligibility for ordination of those in covenanted same-sex unions.”
Some Anglican conservatives said that stance made a schism inevitable.
In February, leaders of the 38 national Anglican churches chastised the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, asking them not to attend this week’s meeting of the Consultative Council of bishops, priests and laypeople that meets every three years.
But Anglican leaders also asked the North American churches to send representatives to explain the theological reasoning behind the consecration of V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, and the decision by the western Canadian diocese of New Westminster to authorize the blessing of same-sex unions.
The U.S. church argued that “members of the Episcopal Church have discerned holiness in same-sex relationships and have come to support the blessing of such unions and the ordination or consecration of persons in those unions.”
The Canadian team was more conciliatory, pointing out the church’s governing General Synod had yet to take a stance on same-sex unions and calling for discussion.
