From the extremely delusional wing: Episcopal leader Jefferts Schori says anger over gay ordination has eased

From GreenvilleOnline.com via TitusOneNine:

BY RON BARNETT • STAFF WRITER • MAY 22, 2010

The Episcopal Church USA and its sister churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion have stronger relationships in many ways now than before the American church angered the more conservative members by consecrating a gay bishop, the church's presiding bishop said Friday.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the national leader of the Episcopal Church in 16 countries, including its 2.4 million members in the U.S., is in Greenville for the consecration today of a new bishop for the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, the Rev. Andrew Waldo.

She said fallout from the 2003 decision to consecrate Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire appears to have settled out for the most part.

“The reactivity right now is much, much less than it was seven years ago,” she said during an interview at Christ Church, where Waldo's consecration will take place.

“I think the church, and certainly the part of the church in the United States, is reasonably clear about where we're going, even though everybody doesn't agree. And those in the church, I think, are willing to live with that tension.”

Some Episcopalians who believe Scripture is clear in condemning homosexuality have left the church and formed an alternative province, while some parishes, including one in Aiken County, have left the denomination.

Others, such as Jefferts Schori, believe the gospel, taken in context, doesn't condemn monogamous homosexual relationships.

“There are certainly parts of the Anglican Communion that continue to be unhappy with the Episcopal Church and the church in Canada,” she said, “but we continue to build relationships across the communion, mission partnerships, and I think those are probably stronger than they were 10 years ago, and there are more of them.

“So we're beginning to understand each other's contexts a little bit better.”

Jefferts Schori, a former oceanographer and native of Panama City, Fla., on the Gulf Coast, said she is concerned that the oil spill off the Louisiana coast will create another disaster of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the same area five years ago.

For the rest of the story, go to: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20100522/NEWS/305220007/Episcopal-leader-Jefferts-Schori-says-anger-over-gay-ordination-has-eased