Schism closer as US Anglicans vote to overturn ban on gay ordinations

From Times Online (London) via TitusOneNine:

July 13, 2009

The Archbishop of Canterbury said comparisons with the Nazis should be used sparingly


Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

The Archbishop of Canterbury today expressed "regret" over a decision by Anglicans in the US that could result in the Church consecrating more gay bishops.

Dr Rowan Williams made clear his concern after clergy and laity in The Episcopal Church voted at the General Convention in California to overturn a moratorium on gay ordinations.

Clergy and laity in the US backed a motion that "acknowledges that God has called and may call any individual in the church to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, in accordance with the discernment process set forth in the Constitution and Canons of the church."

This means that anyone can be ordained regardless of sexuality.

If the US bishops back the move when they vote on it later today or tomorrow, a formal split in the Anglican Communion seems inevitable.

The vote represents a snub to Dr Williams who last week flew to the convention and pleaded in a sermon on Thursday for the Episcopalians not to do anything to "push us further apart" and thereby jeopardise the fragile Church unity that he has struggled so hard to maintain.

Dr Williams has found his time as Archbishop dominated by having to deal with the fall-out from the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, which has already taken the worldwide church to the brink of schism.

Only last month, conservative Episcopalians launched a new province, the Anglican Church in North America, which is seeking recognition from Dr Williams and the General Synod of the Church of England.

Anglican leaders requested the moratorium five years ago in an attempt to prevent schism. The Episcopal Church General Convention three years ago urged "restraint" over the election of bishops whose "manner of life" would cause offence to the wider Anglican Communion.

But Dr Williams's hopes of maintaining unity seemed increasingly futile as The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, warned the Church of England that it should not recognise the new Anglican Church in North America, arguing: "schism is not a Christian act".

About a quarter of General Synod members, including four diocesan and two suffragan bishops, are backing a private member's motion calling on the Church of England to declare itself "in communion" with the new conservative province in the US.

Earlier, Bishop Jefferts Schori "threw a hand grenade" into the proceedings, as USA Today's Faith and Reason blog put it, when she said that the tendency to focus on individual salvation in the debate over sexual ethics was "heresy" and "idolatry".