At the close of the American Anglican Council’s remarkable conference in Dallas on October 9, as 2,700 Episcopalians prepared to return to their churches and dioceses, I went back to my room and wept. I was not unhappy with the conference. It was an astounding show of support for a biblically orthodox witness within our Church.
Coming when it did – shortly before the crucial meeting of Anglican Primates at Lambeth and the subsequent consecration of V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire – it sent a message. Eight hundred clergy and more than twice that number of laity were prepared to stand firm and joyfully witness to our historic faith and values. So in some ways I was elated. But along with the elation there was something else.
I struggled with the undeniable sense that, while we are strong and vital, we had lost. We lost a thirty-year struggle to prevent the Episcopal Church from going over the cliff.
Now the deed is done. Same-sex blessings will become commonplace throughout the Church, supported by majority vote of General Convention. And a divorced man [who is now subsequently] living in a homosexual relationship is now a consecrated bishop in the Church – by majority vote.
No one can open a newspaper or turn on the TV without being confronted with the stark reality that a major Protestant denomination has done the unthinkable. Will other denominations, with our encouragement, follow?
And so I wept, alone in my room, on my knees, with my bags packed. I am not given to outward displays of emotion, but in the privacy of my room, I realized that something precious had been lost and would never be regained.
–The Rev. Dr. Peter Moore, at the time Dean of Trinity School for Ministry, and now actively retired in the diocese of South Carolina
From Ratzinger’s letter to that 2003 conference …
“I hasten to assure you of my heartfelt prayers for all those taking part in this convocation. The significance of your meeting is sensed far beyond Plano, and even in this City from which Saint Augustine of Canterbury was sent to confirm and strengthen the preaching of Christ’s Gospel in England. Nor can I fail to recall that barely 120 years later, Saint Boniface brought that same Christian faith from England to my own forebears in Germany.
The lives of these saints show us how in the Church of Christ there is a unity in truth and a communion of grace which transcend the borders of any nation. With this in mind, I pray in particular that God’s will may be done by all those who seek that unity in the truth, the gift of Christ himself.
With fraternal regards, I remain
Sincerely yours in Christ,
+Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger”
Regarding the the dismay of the article’s author over results of the majority vote which ensconced homosexuality as a model worthy of emulation among clergy and laity alike, another quote by Ratzinger is worth remembering : “Truth is not decided by a majority vote.” It is indeed specious to assume that truth grows out of a majority vote. Will and the desire to wield power go hand-in-glove with majority vote.
I remember a forum we held in my former diocese of West Tenn. in which there was a “debate” about the authority of Holy Scripture regarding the topic of human sexuality. On one “side” was Dr. Gagnon, clearly and un-apologetically standing for the biblical prohibition of homosexual behaviors. On another, Dr. Peter Moore, professing a certain agnosticism about whether Scripture speaks unequivocally to the Church on this issue. His “fairness” became the permission the Church needed to “keep exploring” and thus, in the end, cave in. I take this report-[ with all do respect ] as crocodile (sp.) tears.