Loading...Prior to drafting their response to the Primates, the House of Bishops met in closed sessions on Sept. 20 and 21 with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and other invited guests, including the members of the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Standing Committee of Primates of the Anglican Communion, which also met in New Orleans at the same time. The Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson also attended the sessions.
In their Sept. 25 response to the Primates communiqué, the bishops reiterated their commitment to the Anglican Communion and to gay and lesbian Episcopalians.
Bishop Reed, who attended all five days of the fall meeting, said he had never seen a House of Bishop’s meeting as well attended and “skillfully handled.” Reed retired as the bishop of Kentucky in 1994 and before coming here was the bishop of Colombia, South America. Following are excerpts from the interview.
Episcopal News: Bishop Gulick, you have said that this House of Bishop’s meeting was one of the most important since the Civil War? Why is that?
Gulick: Probably the last two meetings were the most important since the Civil War. This meeting was the chance for us to perfect and continue our response to the strain and stresses in the Anglican Communion since the decision of our General Convention of 2003.
Because there have been a series of responses, it might be helpful to review just what the Episcopal Church has done since 2003 in response to the tensions our actions have caused. First of all, both of our presiding bishops have met with the Primates on many occasions and we voluntarily withheld our voting delegation to the last meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council at Nottingham, England. A theological document was written that attempted to explain the operative theology of our decision in 2003 and that is to set our hope in Christ. We have also responded to various requests from the Primates and the Council of Primates of the Anglican Communion. In March of last year, we explained to them that canonically we could not literally follow their last request for a council made up of Primates and people from our own church because it would have violated our constitution and canons. Since then we have gone on to say very clearly what we are doing and can do to address the concerns the Communion has about our decisions.
During the past several days, as I have read about the meeting in New Orleans in the secular press, I have never seen the secular press do such a bad job of reporting reality. Every headline is wrong. The headlines should be “Episcopal bishops strive to accommodate the concerns of the Anglican Communion,” but the headlines are reading, “Episcopal bishops caused breach.” You didn’t see a headline, for example, “Archbishop of Canterbury receives the Eucharist from the hands of presiding bishop.” That would have been a wonderful headline. That in fact is the truth but that isn’t the headline. The secular press seems to be picking up on tensions, but in a personal communication I received from the Primate of the Scottish Church ... he was tremendously supportive of the wisdom of the Episcopal House of Bishops and of the wisdom of their statement. He felt very strongly that we had met the requests of the Primates and that we had done it in a very appropriate way. ...
Episcopal News: Bishop Reed, would you explain the tenor of the meeting and what took place?
Reed: We had two values, two principles, that we were struggling with, and we had to say which one we have to come down for. One value, of course, is the question of unity – can the church really afford to break apart and continue will it still be catholic? … And the other, of course, is the prophetic witness that we have already taken, saying that just because a person is a homosexual and even the fact that he is living with somebody else is not in itself a reason why that person cannot be a perfectly good bishop. We stood up for Gene Robinson in our resolution. … But at the same time we had to make a choice of which was going to be dominant – we said the unity of the church is the dominant principle. ... I think that the Primates Council that was meeting at the same time as the House of Bishops basically said that, in their opinion, the Episcopal Church had made a good will effort and had complied with three major areas of concern from the tie of the Windsor Report and they feel that with our elucidation of Resolution B033, which is about not ordaining to the episcopate persons whose lifestyle would be problematical, we have answered any concerns that remain. On the blessing of same sex unions, we have assured them that there are no such rites in the official liturgy of our church and that we are not authorizing public rites. That was point number 2. They also felt that the Presiding Bishop’s scheme for alternative Episcopal oversight for dioceses uncomfortable with her ministry meets the concerns of Windsor. For those three key areas they seemed satisfied. Now there was one dissenting voice, but the majority of the primates present felt that the Episcopal Church had made a strong, good faith effort to comply with the concerns of the wider Communion. So I think we moved ahead. The Archbishop of Canterbury has forwarded that analysis to all the primates for their consideration ... and they will apprise the archbishop as to whether they concur.
Reed: We spent two full days debating and discussing what the Primates had to say. The hero of all of this was Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori…. She wouldn’t let us vote on anything until the very end. … [Reed explained that the Presiding Bishop asked the bishops if they would accept this by acclamation but the bishops insisted on taking a vote.] We had to give those who didn’t want it an opportunity to indicate they were not with it … we wanted to vote for this thing and make it ours. I think when she put it to a vote there were only maybe one or two voices at the most that said no. It was overwhelmingly approved. ... I have been in the House of Bishops 43 years now and I don’t think I have ever seen something done as skillfully as that, where we actually came to a true mind of the House….
It is also important to realize that we really did have representation from the Anglican Communion at this meeting as we’ve never had before…. We had the top designated leaders of both the Primates’ Council and the Anglican Consultative Council…. Five of them spoke to us. … [After the interview, Bishop Reed noted that he should have mentioned that the visitors who addressed the House of Bishops “were both charitable and very frank about problems within the Anglican family precipitated by our consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire.”]
Gulick: It’s pretty important to note that …while the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church was struggling to perfect this document, the Primates’ Council was meeting at the same time. … Although the bishops’ statement was not finished before the Primates’ adjourned, our presiding bishop was able to communicate the gist of the statement to her fellow members of the Primates’ Council.
[Both bishops then commented on the responses they have heard regarding the meeting and final statement. Gulick found that “the most favorable words” came from Archbishop of Wales, who said his “church has made the same decisions as the Episcopal Church.” In addition, over the years Primates of several other provinces in the Anglican Communion (South Africa, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland and the Church of England) also have expressed sympathy with the Episcopal Church “for what it has been going through,” said Reed. They also noted that the Archbishops of Canterbury and Australia informed the bishops that there has been an overreaction to the Primates’ communiqué and the Sept. 30 deadline.]
Reed: One of the things that the Archbishop of Australia said was that we overreacted … because some of the things they were proposing were so totally unacceptable to us and we didn’t like that Sept. 30 deadline.
Gulick [elaborating]: … Sept. 30 was just a date meant to coincide with our fall meeting. It wasn’t seen as a line drawn in the sand. It was seen as an opportune occasion to address these concerns since they knew we were meeting in September
Reed: Then after saying that we misread it, he [the Archbishop of Australia] went through the Primates’ statement and said, “While you seem to have heard it this way, it would have been perfectly acceptable if you had heard it in a slightly different way.” He sort of gave us the outline indirectly for our final statement. … [A]ll these guests said that the big problem right now is that the rest of the Church doesn’t trust the House of Bishops. They told us, “We need you to speak clearly. We have had this experience that you say something in one of your meetings and then as soon as the meeting is over one of your bishops goes off and does something else… We don’t’ think that you really mean what you say.” …
Gulick: I heard he also said in a more conciliatory way, “I know you’re convinced General Convention had said in [Resolution] B033 that you will not consent [to the consecration of gay bishops] and I know that your General Convention has not authorized rites for the blessing of same sex unions. You need to clearly say it again. …
As a person who clearly voted to sustain the election of the bishop of New Hampshire, I personally find it difficult when the House of Bishops has spoken to have the dissenting voices of the right or the left then try to speak immediately. That is confusing, and voices on the right and the left do that. It takes away from the kind of conciliatory and centrist statements that the House of Bishops is making. … It weakens the common voice and the common voice needs to be heard.
I personally think had I been at the meeting I could not have been happier with the final product. It was exactly where I think the church needed to be. ...
Episcopal News: The bishops’ have stated in Resolution B033 that they will not consecrate as bishops persons whose lifestyles are unacceptable to the communion, which includes individuals in same-sex relationships, nor will they authorize rites for public blessings of same-sex unions. The latter point, however, has brought different interpretations. What do the bishops specifically mean when they speak of public blessings?
Gulick: My clear understanding of what this means is that in Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Kentucky there will be no celebrations of the blessing of same-sex unions in the sanctuary of Episcopal churches, no specific blessings.
Continuing their discussion about the bishops’ statement, Reed and Gulick both spoke of the difficult decisions that had to be made by the bishops and the imperative for the Episcopal Church to remain in relationship with the Anglican Communion.
Reed: Five hundred years ago we broke from the Roman Catholic Church. …. Healing a broken church is very, very slow, painful and difficult. … Put this in a time perspective, if we were to precipitate or contribute to a real schism in the Anglican Communion, it’s not something that’s going to be repaired in my grandchildren’s lifetime. ... On the other hand, the social dimension of the issue that we are talking about is something that is evolving in human history. [He compared this social justice issue currently being addressed by the Church with the Church’s dealing with slavery and women’s inequality, noting that the Church has been slower to accept civil rights for Blacks and women than has society.] … Within my children’s lifetime, the issues around homosexuality are going to be much more clearly resolved … and the positions we have taken will prove to have been prophetic. …
Gulick: The point I would like to make is that unity of the church is not an abstract good. For example, what would it mean if there were a huge breach? … Between the African Church and the Episcopal Church, there is already a strain. What would it mean for something that we value, for example like Hannah Ministries, if there were a breach? What would it mean for our partnerships in a health clinic, in universities, in all sorts of initiatives and theological education with our partner churches in the developing world? If there were a breach in the community of the church, it could reach to the level of distended children’s abdomens. … It could mean more people dying of HIV/AIDS because bishops will not allow American funds to be used to relieve suffering. So it has an existential component of it that is tremendously significant.
Episcopal News (in a subsequent interview with Bishop Gulick): The Joint Standing Committees of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates of the Anglican Communion recently issued a 19-page report that was sent to all of the Primates and members of the Anglican Consultative Council. The Archbishop has asked that these leaders consult with their provinces and then send a response to him by the end of October. As you mentioned earlier, the Archbishops of Canterbury and Australia suggested that we misread the Primates’ communiqué from Dar es Salaam and the Sept. 30 deadline. To avoid misunderstanding, what is taking place now in the Communion, would you describe the most significant findings from the Joint Standing Committee’s report and the Archbishop’s request for responses from the provinces by the end of this month? How are Episcopalians to “read,” to understand the next round of reports and responses?
I think that the Primates Council that was meeting at the same time as the House of Bishops basically said that, in their opinion, the Episcopal Church had made a good will effort and had complied with three major areas of concern from the tie of the Windsor Report and they feel that with our elucidation of Resolution B033, which is about not ordaining to the episcopate persons whose lifestyle would be problematical, we have answered any concerns that remain. On the blessing of same sex unions, we have assured them that there are no such rites in the official liturgy of our church and that we are not authorizing public rites. That was point number 2. They also felt that the Presiding Bishop’s scheme for alternative Episcopal oversight for dioceses uncomfortable with her ministry meets the concerns of Windsor. For those three key areas they seemed satisfied. Now there was one dissenting voice, but the majority of the primates present felt that the Episcopal Church had made a strong, good faith effort to comply with the concerns of the wider Communion. So I think we moved ahead. The Archbishop of Canterbury has forwarded that analysis to all the primates for their consideration ... and they will apprise the archbishop as to whether they concur.
