From the Vancouver Sun: Same-sex unions up for synod debate

The more than 300 delegates to this week’s Anglican General Synod will be deciding whether to follow the lead of Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham, who drew both global praise and censure in 2002 when he first blessed same-sex couples.

With outspoken African Anglican leaders threatening to try to shove the Canadian denomination out of the 77-million-member global Anglican communion, the decisions Canada’s Anglicans make this week are being closely watched.

At a Fraser Valley meeting this month, Ingham told Anglicans he disagreed with the Canadian House of Bishops’ “surprising” vote in May to recommend a further delay, for three years, of a decision over whether to allow same-sex blessings to be approved by local dioceses.

However, the bishops did recommend Anglican priests offer communion to homosexual couples who had undergone civil unions.

Whatever the case, the bishops’ vote is not ultimately binding on delegates to the denomination’s once-every-three-years synod, a governing body with more authority than the bishops alone.

On Wednesday, both Ingham and Stephen Schuh, a gay Anglican from Vancouver, put forward a motion calling on the synod to affirm that it will still be acceptable for him to continue to sanction same-sex blessings in his diocese — no matter what delegates decide this week, probably on Saturday, to do nationally.

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Provinces, Canadian General Synod 2007, Same-sex blessings, Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion)

2 comments on “From the Vancouver Sun: Same-sex unions up for synod debate

  1. jamesw says:

    I just read the following story:
    http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=48cb9990-b125-4e78-98c9-bd409f915e0a&k=53248

    Note the following:

    Even if the Anglican Church of Canada votes on Saturday to approve same-sex blessings, the spokesman for the world’s top Anglican says the Canadian denomination will not be kicked out of the global Anglican communion.

    “No scenario could emerge” from this week’s Anglican General Synod that would lead to the Archbishop of Canterbury expelling the Canadian church from the 76-million-member global Anglican denomination, says Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion.

    The right-hand man to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said in a face-to-face Thursday interview:

    “There’s no question the Anglican Church of Canada is a valued member of the Anglican communion. There’s never been a scenario considered that would lead to the exclusion of the Anglican Church of Canada.”

    Of course, this is Kenneth Kearon talking, but if this is true, then it cause for serious concern and will probably mean the breakup of the Communion.

  2. mugsie says:

    If Kearon really said that, then it’s bribery. He’s trying to bribe them to vote in his favor. May God rebuke him!!!!