You are here
Pittsburgh Episcopal bishop to attend Utah meeting about gay issues
By Megan McCloskey
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
January 11, 2005
Pittsburgh Episcopal diocese Bishop Robert Duncan will attend a special
meeting of the church's top leaders in Utah to decide how to deal with the fallout over the ordination of the denomination's first openly gay bishop.
The Episcopal House of Bishops, which represents 2.3 million American
members, is meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Salt Lake City to decide on two proposed moratoriums: the ordination of non-celibate gay bishops and the marriage rites of same-sex couples.
The leaders also will decide whether they should apologize for ordaining a gay bishop in the first place.
Duncan has been leading the charge against progressive movements within the church that he and other conservatives consider to be contrary to scripture. His actions have caused a rift -- and spurred lawsuits -- among the 20,000 Episcopalians in the Pittsburgh diocese, some of whom support the actions of the House of Bishops.
After U.S. church leaders voted 62 to 45 to allow the consecration of V.
Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in August 2003, Duncan started the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.
The 10-member group unifies the country's conservative Episcopalian
dioceses that are concerned the actions of the church endangers its
relationship with the international Anglican community, said Peter Frank,
local diocesan spokesman.
The Anglican Communion, with 77 million members worldwide, lacks any formal structure. Some dioceses have severed relationships with American and Canadian dioceses that ordain openly gay priests and bishops and bless the unions of same-sex couples.
"Unlike (some) other Christian denominations, such as the Roman Catholic Church, there isn't an enforceable set of rules," said David Roozen, professor of Religion and Society at the Hartford (Conn.) Institute for Religion Research.
The agenda of the meeting is based on whether to endorse the
recommendations made in October by the Anglican Communion's top leadership in a document called the Windsor Report.
The report called for the two moratoriums and the apology, saying the
actions of the U.S. church were ahead of the "mind" of the Anglican
community, Roozen said.
Exactly what the wording of the Windsor Report means is a source of debate between liberal and conservative bishops.
In a letter to the members of the House of Bishops, Bishop John W. Howe, of the Central Florida Diocese, which is a member of Duncan's conservative network, called for a decisive and affirmative response to the report, including asking those who participated in the consecration of Robinson "to refrain from representing the Anglican Community in international and ecumenical gatherings."
Frank said Duncan is expected to make a speech at the meeting on behalf of the network.
END
