Times of Change for Anglicans, Catholics; While the Anglican Communion struggles with the consecration of a gay bishop, John Paul II takes steps to ensure his successor will be as conservative as he is

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 24, 2003 | by Jamie Dettmer

Byline: Jamie Dettmer, INSIGHT

ROME - Not since the days of the Reformation has the word "schism" been thrown around with such abandon. But this time it is not the Roman Catholic Church that is being rocked by bitter theological dispute. The tough regime of Pope John Paul II the third-longest-serving pontiff since Peter was bishop of the Eternal City has ensured stability in the affairs of the Church of Rome. Now it is the turn of the 500-year-old Anglican Church to risk a permanent division that could leave it weaker and poorer at a time when newer but more traditional-minded churches, as well as the Catholic Church, are proving increasingly attractive to young Christians.

While the frail John Paul II in October celebrated 25 years as head of the Church of Rome with a week of ceremonies, his Anglican counterpart, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, was warning the world's 80 million Anglicans that their church is on the brink of a lasting split. For much of the year the bearded Williams had been struggling to try to prevent a long-simmering dispute over gay and lesbian clergy from poisoning church relations. But the decision in the summer by leaders of the U.S. branch of the Anglican Church to give the go-ahead for consecration of the openly gay V. Gene Robinson as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire has raised the very real prospect of a breakup of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

An emergency two-day summit of 37 archbishops at London's Lambeth Palace in October to seek discernment over the issue of gay and lesbian clergy has done little to calm the heated dispute or to persuade church observers that the Anglican family may be heading for anything but an ugly divorce.

It isn't a prospect that pleases the Vatican, despite the fact that a breakup of the Anglican Communion probably would lead to a wave of defections to the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican officials say the row within the Anglican Communion risks doing grave damage to the wider ecumenical movement that John Paul II has encouraged. And Roman Catholic liberals worry that the issue of gay clergy will have a knock-on effect, stopping them from fighting more strongly for married clergy within their church.

The furor in the Anglican Church has been a long time in coming. It has bubbled since the late 1990s when the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops passed a resolution that accepted gay worshippers as full members of the church but ruled that homosexual practice was incompatible with Scripture and said gay people should remain celibate.

Conservative and evangelical Anglicans insist that, by confirming Robinson, the U.S. Protestant Episcopalian Church has broken ranks with that resolution and put itself outside the communion. The Robinson furor followed a blowup in June in the United Kingdom over the nomination of the openly gay, but celibate, Canon Jeffrey John as suffragan bishop of Reading, England. Amid uproar over his selection, John subsequently was persuaded to step aside by Archbishop of Canterbury Williams.

Conservative evangelicals, determined not to be a minority antigay protest group within the Church of England, began in the summer to rally like-minded Anglican leaders worldwide, and their lobbying paid off at Lambeth.

Led by more-traditional Anglican archbishops from Africa and Asia, the Lambeth Conference warned of grave consequences ahead for the Anglican Church if Robinson were consecrated. "We recognize that we have reached a crucial and critical point in the life of the Anglican Communion and we have had to conclude that the future of the communion itself is in jeopardy," the Lambeth archbishops concluded.

Williams, known to be privately sympathetic to gay priests and to blessing same-sex unions, managed to secure a delaying tactic. At his urging the leaders set up a commission to look into the whole issue, which they said should report back within a year. According to Williams, this would allow 12 months of "thinking time" about how splits over homosexuality could be resolved.

But the fragile truce Williams endeavored to arrange is unlikely to hold in the light of Robinson's consecration on Nov. 2. As far as U.S. Anglican leaders are concerned Robinson's sexuality should be seen as "incidental" to his ability to serve as a bishop. "Canon Robinson was elected based on his nearly three decades of ministry in the diocese, his considerable pastoral skills and his vision for ministry," U.S. church leaders say. Robinson for his part says disagreement over his consecration should be pursued gently. "We will show the world how to be a Christian community," he says. "I plan to be a good bishop, not a gay bishop."

The turmoil in the Anglican Church contrasts greatly with the stability John Paul II has brought in his quarter-century as pope to the Roman Catholic Church, although he too has faced severe problems from America. The U.S. bishops' past and present handling of the widespread allegations of sexual abuse by priests has caused consternation in Rome and left the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States severely damaged.