Alan Perry, a priest at St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Montreal, says that to the outsider, it would seem the local synods are thumbing their noses at the mother Church.<\/p>\n
But Rev. Perry, an expert on canon law, said there is a certain logic to what is going on.<\/p>\n
“This is the Anglican Church at work in all its messiness,” he said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n
The general synod, he said, was asked to “affirm” that the dioceses have the authority to allow same-sex blessings.<\/p>\n
“The defeat of the motion did not enact the opposite,” Rev. Perry said. “There was no motion that said the general synod has the authority. There was no motion saying the dioceses do not have the authority. There was no motion to grant or deny authority to the dioceses. None of that happened. So what you’ve got is a legal vacuum.”<\/p>\n
Last month, Rev. Perry wrote a piece for the Montreal Anglican, a monthly diocesan newspaper, on the issue. “General Synod has certainly left matters a little untidy, but the one thing it has decidedly not done is to defeat a local option of the blessing of same-sex unions. Words matter.”<\/p>\n