Q: Have you picked up on a lot of concerns from people here about things going on in the Episcopal Church?
A: I find that when I apologize for what we’ve done, in the midst of the conversation they say thank you, I’m glad to hear that that’s how you feel. William Temple, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said that the church needs to be very clear in its public pronouncements so it can be very pastoral in its application. What the Episcopal Church did in 2003 is it made a public pronouncement by action, and that action was contrary, or in contradiction to the teaching of the church, and so what we have is a public pronouncement and an official teaching that [are] incoherent with one another, and that creates, then, a very awkward situation in which what we teach and what we’ve done are at odds with one another, and there is a profound unclarity on a public level, which means on a local level every individual priest, every individual bishop has to take a stand, and once you’ve taken a stand then it’s difficult to be in a pastoral relationship with those who feel like you’ve just abandoned them or taken a position that alienates them from where they are. And so it’s just the opposite of what the archbishop said years ago, that the church needs to be very clear in its public pronouncement so it can be very pastoral in its application. We’ve turned the axiom on its end.
Q: A group here within the church has recommended that the moratorium continues and be enforced against a blessing for same-sex relationships, against gay bishops, against the cross-jurisdictional relationships. What is your reaction to these recommendations?
A: Well, I’d say this: that the Anglican Communion is in a process of trying to understand how we live in a global age. ”¦ Some of us have come to the conclusion we need some kind of covenant by which we can say this is who we are, this is how we shall live together, this is how we should treat one another. There are limits to Anglican diversity, and these are now what they are.
Q: Is that a good idea?
A: It’s a wonderful idea, because this Communion is too important in an age of globalism, in a global church, not to be able to live together with respect, with trust, and with cooperation.
For those interested yopu can read more there an also here.