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As members of the Church of Ireland we wish to express sorrow that Mary Glasspool, a person who is living in a same-sex relationship, is to be consecrated as one of two new assistant bishops in Los Angeles on May 15.

The elevation to senior church leadership of a person whose lifestyle is contrary to the will of God revealed in Scripture is both wrong and disappointing.

The decision to elect and confirm Mary Glasspool to the position of suffragan bishop is a clear rejection of the many pleas for gracious restraint made from within the Anglican Communion, not least by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Windsor Report and the most recent Primates’ Meeting. The Episcopal Church (TEC) has taken this provocative step despite knowing the division and difficulties created by Gene Robinson’s consecration in 2003. This shows a deliberate disregard for other members of the Anglican family and suggests that TEC does not greatly value unity within Anglicanism and indeed throughout the universal Church.

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[Diane] Bruce and [Mary] Glasspool will be assistants to [Jon] Bruno, a position known as suffragan. They are the 1,044th and 1,045th bishops ordained in the history of the Episcopal Church, but few previous clerical elections have attracted as much attention.

Although both ordinations broke new ground, it was the selection of Glasspool, who is gay, that attracted worldwide attention and no small amount of consternation among more conservative members of the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part. The head of the church, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, said after Glasspool’s election in March that it was “regrettable” and could threaten the unity of the communion.

She becomes the second gay bishop of the Episcopal Church, following Gene Robinson, who was chosen as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. His selection rocked the church and led to the departure of dozens of its more conservative parishes and four dioceses. In reaction, the church enacted a moratorium on the election of additional gay bishops but overturned that policy at its national convention in Anaheim last summer.

In choosing Glasspool, the Los Angeles Diocese became the first to test the new policy. With some 70,000 members and 147 congregations in six Southern California counties, it is among the largest Episcopal dioceses in the country and is considered among the most liberal.

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Mary Glasspool, 56, was ordained yesterday in front of 3,000 supporters ”” and two protesters ”” in the Long Beach Arena, south of Los Angeles.

Calling herself a “reconciling person”, she offered to “reach out and engage with people who believe or think differently than I do”, but her appointment has already tested the Episcopal Church’s ties to the Church of England almost to breaking point.

Hoping to retain the allegiance of conservatives still furious over the ordination of Gene Robinson, the first gay Anglican bishop, in 2003, Dr Williams has said that Canon Glasspool’s ordination “raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopalian Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole”. He declined to comment on the ordination.

A spokesman for the Church of Ireland called the appointment “both wrong and disappointing”.

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The U.S. Episcopal Church has ordained an openly lesbian bishop despite warnings from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Mary Glasspool, 56, became an assistant bishop at a ceremony attended by 3,000 people in Long Beach, California, on Saturday.

She is only the second openly gay bishop in Anglican church history after Gene Robinson was ordained in November 2003.

Dr Rowan Williams had urged the American Church not to proceed with the ordination, warning that it would further alienate traditionalists who believe active homosexuality to be a sin.

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The Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles ordained an openly lesbian bishop on Saturday, a move likely to stoke further tensions between liberals and conservatives in the deeply divided global Anglican Communion.

Mary Douglas Glasspool is now a suffragan, or assistant, bishop in a liberal diocese on America’s famously tolerant West Coast, and she offered to meet with her critics as a “reconciling person”.

Some 3,000 people attended the ceremony, said diocese spokesman Bob Williams. “The event was joyful and well attended,” he said.

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The theological differences that precipitated the exodus of Sellers’ congregation and others from the Episcopal Church are the root of the latest strife to affect the denomination. This new conflict, though, which has managed to unite groups that abandoned the denomination as far back as 1873, could mean serious trouble for the Episcopal Church, said Bill Leonard, dean and professor of church history at Wake Forest University Divinity School.

“It is very fascinating historically that the Anglican Communion in this country has decided to split over issues of sexuality, when they resisted schism over slavery, temperance, and fundamentalism and liberalism in the 1920s, those controversies that divided so many Protestant groups in North America,” he said.

“It took a long time, but now that it has started, it is moving along with a vengeance.”

In Pinellas, the squabble between the two churches continues over matters such as ownership of an early learning center and a bingo license. The Episcopal congregation wants its website and phone number back.

“It’s like a family breaking up,” said Jim DeLa, spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese.

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In her letter to the Primates, the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church (TEC) Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, confirmed that the consecration of the openly gay Mary Glasspool is not a random event but comes from the settled mind of her church. Sadly, this shows that TEC has now explicitly decided to walk apart from most of the rest of the Communion.

Since that decision by TEC has to be respected, it should result in three consequences. First, TEC withdrawing, or being excluded from the Anglican Communion’s representative bodies. Second, a way must be found to enable those orthodox Anglicans who remain within TEC to continue in fellowship with the Churches of the worldwide Communion. Third, the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) should now be recognized an authentic Anglican Church within the Communion.

Dr Philip Giddings, Convenor,

Canon Dr Chris Sugden Executive Secretary, Anglican Mainstream

Integrity celebrates with the Diocese of Los Angeles and the whole church today at the ordinations of Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce and Bishop Mary Douglas Glasspool. This history making day is another important step forward toward the full inclusion of all the baptized in the work and witness of the Episcopal Church, and Integrity is honored to have been part of it.

“As we celebrate these ordinations today, we also celebrate the hard work and persistent activism of Integrity over the last 35 years,” said President David Norgard. “Here in Long Beach today we are not only reaping the fruit of the work of those who have gone before us–we are planting the seeds for fuller inclusion throughout the whole church.”

Also present at the festive ordination service were past-presidents of Integrity, including Bruce Garner (Atlanta), Kim Byham (Newark), and Susan Russell (Los Angeles). “As a daughter of this diocese [I] could not be more proud that Los Angeles has responded to the call to be a headlight instead of taillight on full inclusion,” said Russell. “Today the first woman Presiding Bishop in the history of the Anglican Communion ordained the first two women bishops in the history of the Diocese of Los Angeles…and the fact that one of them is a lesbian is not an ‘issue’ but an opportunity for us to better incarnate the wholeness of God’s abundant and inclusive love.”

Today is a day for celebration. And tomorrow Integrity will get back to work toward the day when the gender, orientation, identity or race of a bishop for the Church of God is no longer an “issue.” For anybody. And for the time when all the sacraments will be fully available to all the baptized. For everybody

The Rev Mary Glasspool will become Assistant Bishop of Los Angeles in a “grand event” taking place at a 13,500-seat arena on the Californian coast.

Her appointment is being made despite warnings from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, about the “serious questions” it will raise for the 80 million-strong Anglican Communion.

It is being viewed by traditionalists as another “provocative” move by the ultra-liberal Episcopal Church of the USA in “defiance” of pleas not to go against tradition and Scripture by ordaining homosexual bishops.

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The election of Mary Glasspool – who has been with her partner Becki for 22 years – represented a snub by the liberal Episcopal Church to other Anglican Churches around the world.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams had urged the American Church not to proceed with the ordination, warning that it would further alienate traditionalists who believe active homosexuality to be a sin.

It is likely to accelerate the gradual marginalisation of the Episcopal Church within a two-tier Communion and increase tensions between Anglicans elsewhere.

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The national Episcopal Church has more than 2.2 million members in 16 countries. It is under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Communion, which has more than 70 million members worldwide. While many churches in the United States and Western Europe have accepted gay clergy, most in Asia and Africa condemn homosexuality.

The issue intensified when the first gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, was consecrated in the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003. As a result, many parishes broke from the church, including All Saints Episcopal Church of Long Beach.

This time around, [Canon Robert ] Williams said he hasn’t heard of any local parishes threatening to leave the dioceses. He said the church is overjoyed for today’s event and is committed to moving forward.

“The Episcopal Church continues its long tradition of members of diverse points of view yet who are united in common prayer,” Williams said. “While a small percentage have chosen to disaffiliate in recent years, there remains a strong and vibrant core membership.”

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From here:

Today Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA) pray episcopal consecration prayers over the Revd Mary Glasspool, who lives in an openly same-sex relationship.

Today, St Lawrence Morden, in the Diocese of Southwark, together with other congregation members from the team parish, keeps a day of prayer on Leith Hill, Surrey. As well as confessing individual sin, they will mourn the passing of the Anglican Communion as it has been. They will celebrate the emergence of a renewed communion, led by the large majority of Anglicans in the Global South, and intercede over the response to ECUSA’s action, by Archbishop Rowan Williams and other Church of England Bishops. We will give thanks for the unity of our Diocese maintained by recently retired Bishop, Tom Butler. We call on Anglican churches around the world to pray with us, over the appointment of the next Bishop of Southwark.

All seems oddly quiet on this day when Canon Mary Glasspool will be ordained and consecrated at a Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles. Yet the consequences may well be graver than ensued after the Bishop of New Hampshire was consecrated in 2003. Then it could be said with some plausibility that no one in TEC realized what a fuss would emerge. No one is in any doubt this time. The Archbishop of Canterbury has made it clear that there will be consequences for TEC in its relationship with the Communion and there will be consequences within the Communion.

I read this morning an interview in the Baltimore Sun with Canon Glasspool which includes a short video. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/bs-md-glasspool-bishop-consecration-20100507,0,73

A number of points were raised which invite comment….

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The Maryland priest at the center of a seismic tumult in the worldwide international Anglican Communion is slim and stands just over five feet, wears her gray hair cut short and greets visitors with a strong two-handed grasp. She’s known to former parishioners and colleagues for emotional and insightful sermons, administrative skill, high energy ”” and for occasionally wearing a giant foam wedge of cheese on her head to honor her favorite NFL team.

The Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool, due to be consecrated Saturday as bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, is known to the rest of the world by a phrase that would fit on a bumper sticker: “First openly lesbian bishop.”

If the label seems handy, Glasspool said she hopes it soon outlives its usefulness.

“People who know me, the label will disappear. All I’m asking is an opportunity to get to know me,” Glasspool, 56, said last week in an interview at the Baltimore headquarters of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. As canon to the bishops for the last nine years, she has served there as principal adviser to the leaders of the church.

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An Episcopal church in Northeast Portland has many fewer members since about 100 people left to form a new Anglican parish late last month. The rector and the majority of his congregation at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church voted on March 21 to leave and rent space nearby as the newly formed St. Matthew’s Anglican Church. They began holding Sunday services there on April 25.

The split at St. Matthew’s follows a long line of divisions in the Episcopal church over the past few years. Many point to the election of the faith’s first openly gay bishop in 2003 as the beginning of the conflict within the church, but others say that event was just one of many points of contention among progressive and conservative Episcopalians.

Check it out and listen to the whole program (a little under 43 minutes).

We are now less than six days from ECUSA’s “consecration” of a partnered lesbian to the (ECUSAn, at any rate) episcopacy. As I wrote in this earlier post, in so consecrating Canon Mary Glasspool, ECUSA will shoot itself in the foot. Even so, the silence from Lambeth Palace over the past weeks has been deafening.

Contrast to the present scenario the weeks following the confirmation of the election of V. Gene Robinson as bishop by both Houses at General Convention 2003….

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New signs will go up on the Episcopal Church on Highway 17 in Pawleys Island this summer: Christ the King, Waccamaw.

The church was formerly All Saints Waccamaw, but a settlement in a long-running lawsuit earlier this year led the Episcopal parish to give up the name.

“All Saints is such a dear name to many, a great name with meaning to a lot of people,” said Rick Bruce, senior warden of the Episcopal church vestry. “We wanted a name that would be meaningful in a different way.”

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There were about 30 people in the pews for the 10:15 a.m. service at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Largo on May 2, most bunched along the center aisle, near the altar.

They were there to witness a rebirth of a congregation that has been in turmoil since last fall, when its former rector tried to lead them out of The Episcopal Church and affiliate with a conservative Anglican coalition based in Pennsylvania.

StDunstans-web“Even though this gathering today is made up of people who have been through pain, as well as people who are here to offer great loving support, God is with us,” Bishop Dabney Smith told those assembled.

The 13 Episcopalians who remain at St. Dunstan’s have decided to rebuild their congregation after spending months trying to work out a settlement with their former fellow parishioners. Bishop Smith has appointed the Rev. Norman Howard as their priest-in-charge.

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The Diocese of Southwest Florida has acted on its responsibilities by taking steps to better control the buildings, grounds and mission of one of its member congregations, St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Largo.

This is in response to a Sept. 13, 2009 decision by some members of the congregation, led by Ed Sellers, their former Episcopal priest, to sever their relationship with The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church in North America.

Since that decision, Sellers and his congregation have been allowed to continue to worship at St. Dunstan’s property, which is wholly owned by the Diocese of Southwest Florida, while Bishop Dabney Smith conferred with chancellors and the elected leadership of the diocese, including the Standing Committee and the Diocesan Council.

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A breakaway parish that has fought a long-running legal battle to retain control of its seaside church is once again hoping to take its fight to the California Supreme Court.

St. James Anglican Church, a self-described “biblically orthodox” congregation that sought to distance itself from the national Episcopal Church due to disagreements over scriptural teachings and the ordination of a gay bishop, filed a petition to the California Supreme Court on Tuesday as part of an effort to be declared the owner of the church property.

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Attorneys for the Episcopal Church and for Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison argued before an ecclesiastical appeals court here May 4 about whether the bishop should have been tried and convicted on charges stemming from his response to his priest brother’s sexual misconduct some 35 years ago.

Among the issues facing the eight-bishop Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop after three hours of oral arguments are questions of whether the evidence presented at Bennison’s trial supported his conviction, whether the canonical statute of limitations on those actions had run, and whether the trial court’s sentence of deposition would be unduly harsh because Bennison himself did not engage in the sexual abuse.

The hearing took place at Trinity Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware. Bennison, the alleged victim and her mother were present for the hearing, along with nearly 45 other people, including officials from the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

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On Sunday, members of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Parish were still reeling from their separation.

For the second week, two dozen people gathered in the wood and brick building on Northeast Prescott Street that has been their home for 55 years. An hour later, almost 100 of their former brothers and sisters in Christ, who recently declared themselves Anglicans, worshiped in rented space at Mt.Tabor Seventh-day Adventist Church. The storm that has battered the Episcopal Church in the United States has touched down in Portland.

Since the Episcopal Church in the United States decided in 2003 to accept the election of its first openly gay bishop, the denomination has been rocked with disagreements over biblical authority. With a reputation as a conservative congregation, St. Matthew’s had for 66 years included people who read the Bible almost literally and others who interpreted it from more liberal points of view. But over time, that range grew problematic. On March 21, a majority of St. Matthew’s members voted to leave the church.

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We haven’t formally disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church. We added the other affiliation in order to obtain godly episcopal care. The opposition wants the court to order our Anglican bishops to not set foot in our building without their permission. The judge refused.

Also, 35-40 (not 25) of us attended court. At the most recent hearing, Father David Cannon – so-called “priest in charge” – had nobody with him except attorneys, because there are no dissenters in the parish.

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From here:

Death is eternal, but burial is not.

That is what relatives of 46 former worshippers of Christ Church on the Green are learning after a decision by the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut to remove cremated remains from a memorial garden on the church grounds. The historic chapel was put up for sale last year after half its membership broke away in late 2007 over the national church’s stance on homosexuality and other issues.

“You have a situation here, where, by virtue of a sale, the diocese will no longer be responsible for the land, its use, or any care of anything in it,” said the Rev. Stanley Kemmerer, priest-in-charge. “It’s really an effort to be pastoral.”

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The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin filed a lawsuit last week against St. James Anglican ”” the historic Red Church ”” in Sonora. It was news to St. James’ priest, the Rev. Wolfgang Krismanits, on Monday afternoon.

“We’ve had no word whatsoever,” he said. “I’ve seen nothing yet. I didn’t get an e-mail. I didn’t get a phone call.”

When told that a news release dated Friday said a lawsuit had been filed against his congregation, Krismanits replied with frustration: “This is what (the Episcopal[ians]s) are doing. They’re telling everyone else, but they’re not contacting the congregation until after it’s done.”

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He went on to say that the Anglican Communion had been reflecting on the need for a covenant “in the light of confusion, brokenness and tension within our Anglican family ”“ brokenness and a tension that has been made still more acute by recent decisions in some of our Provinces.?

“In all your minds there will be questions around the election and consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles. All of us share the concern that in this decision and action the Episcopal Church has deepened the divide between itself and the rest of the Anglican family. And as I speak to you now, I am in discussion with a number of people around the world about what consequences might follow from that decision, and how we express the sense that most Anglicans will want to express, that this decision cannot speak for our common mind.

“But I hope also in your thinking about this and in your reacting to it, you’ll bear in mind that there are no quick solutions for the wounds of the Body of Christ. It is the work of the Spirit that heals the Body of Christ, not the plans or the statements of any group, or any person, or any instrument of communion. Naturally we seek to minimize the damage, to heal the hurts, to strengthen our mission, to make sure that it goes forward with integrity and conviction.? Naturally, there are decisions that have to be taken.? But at the same time we must all…share in a sense of repentance and willingness to be renewed by the Spirit.

Read it carefully and read it all and note if you desire to you can watch the full address on video there.

Members of the Bishop Seabury church, including the man who led them away from the Episcopal Diocese in 2007, are taking it Sunday by Sunday.

About 25 parishioners from the Groton church attended a court hearing in Waterbury Thursday to learn whether they would be able to remain during an appeal of a judge’s ruling that the church and all of its property must be turned over to the diocese.

The group will be allowed to stay, at least for the near future.

“It’s better than nothing,” said the Rev. Ronald Gauss, who traveled by bus to the hearing along with about two dozen others.

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