Today’s Center Aisle Editorial “Room for Optimism” is about Resolution D025:
The work on this resolution is not done. Bishops on World Mission voted 3-2 against the proposal, while deputies on the panel approved it 24-2. Though D025 doesn’t explicitly repeal B033, the compromise resolution from 2006, it does raise legitimate concerns by affirming that “God has called and may call” gay and lesbian persons “to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church.” That language could be interpreted as a unilateral lifting of the moratorium on gay bishops.
Still, it’s encouraging to see how effectively World Mission has drawn on language of reconciliation from past Conventions and how deftly it has integrated our Church’s “abiding commitment” to the Anglican Communion with a reaffirmation of our inclusiveness as a community of faith.
It’s a reminder of how precise wording can be far more than lawyerly nitpicking; it can be a catalyst to building bonds of trust. Recall past statements by Anglican bodies for “gracious restraint” and “bonds of affection.”
It’s like what one IRA thug quipped about their campaign to kill Maggie Thatcher: MI6 had to be lucky many times, the IRA only had to be lucky once.
B033, itself a nearly-empty vessel, is going to be drained at GC09 one way or another.
I have just return from morning worship and am interested to discover after posting this that Episcopal Cafe also has it posted.
Nothing shall deter the ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC from total gayification, and, given its past behaviours, gayifying the entire Anglican Communion to its standards. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Edmund Browning, Frank Griswold, Katharine Schori as points in space define not a line but a plane of existence which does not require fidelity to signed documents, much less verbal understandings. The ABC and the AC have no excuse for culpability in this matter. Any dealing with B033 will be a further falsification of it, period.
The best that could happen would be its outright rejection because that is what the behaviour has repeatedly demonstrated. Truth, rather than truthiness, is needed.
The Diocese of Virginia thinks it’s good that it isn’t “lawyerly nitpicking?” Ironic.
When you only listen to yourself it’s possible to convince yourself of almost anything. Who in the larger Communion do they think will be fooled by this? Their capacity for self-deception seems to have no limits.
I think it is an obscene waste of resources. GC should elect the required officers, adopt the required budget, do whatever the devil the deputies and bishops fancy with regard to the canons and adjourn. Resolutions have no force and signify nothing other than the humor of the Houses on a particular day.
Whether or not this verbage passes, bishops will continue to ordain gays and lesbians involved in those gays and lesbians living in lifelong committed relationships “characterized by fidelity, monogamy,
mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God” and to allow (or ignore and even “unconsciously participate in) the blessing and/or marriage of same sex partners. Eventually another gay or lesbian will be elected bishop and consents given. And eventually, priests and bishops who refuse to go along will be presented and deposed under the canon prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.