Episcopal priests soon will be authorized to perform church weddings for gay couples in Washington ”“ the latest example of the American branch of Anglicanism striving to be more inclusive and diverse.
On Friday, a day after the first same-sex couples received marriage licenses in Spokane County, the top leader of the Episcopal Church arrived in Spokane to begin a three-day swing through the Inland Northwest.
“I know it’s something that many people in the church and beyond the church have been working for for a long time,” the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the church, said in an interview Friday.
So, if the ministers can marry same sex couples, the group would no longer be a couple, but a triple. A whole new can of worms! A whole new mix, too, depending on the sex of the minister and those that the minister is marrying!
How has the diocese of Spokane fared in recent years?
And any indication of how it will go after this?
Statmann seems to be off this morning, and I don’t have the raw numbers, but as anyone can guess the numbers are nothing to brag about. Mean ASA per parish last year (yes, they snuck those numbers out without ceremony too) was 54, but the median is surely closer to 40: the biggest parish is the cathedral in Spokane, with an ASA of somewhat over 200. I don’t think there’s as many as ten parishes with ASA over 100, and half of those show a steady decline, as does the diocese as a whole. Talking about viability of parishes is laughable when there are a bunch of under 10 ASA parishes: one parish reported an ASA of three!
“one parish reported an ASA of three!”
Wow, a trinity. How Nicene!