Anglican Church Leader Issues 'Profound Apology' to Gays

The head of the Anglican Church (known as the Episcopalian Church in the U.S.) offered gays and lesbians his "profound apology" for remarks designed to appease anti-woman and anti-gay hardliners and hold the splintering faith together.

Tensions in the Anglican Church, which has 77 million members worldwide, started decades ago over questions of what role women should play in the church. Some hardliners reject the notion of women as bishops--and indeed, those elements are pondering a conversion to Catholicism, a move that the Roman Catholic Church would welcome. The Vatican has already issued an invitation to conservative Anglicans who wish to join the Catholic faith. Converts would be allowed to retain some elements of the Anglican Church, such as priests being free to marry. Pope Benedict XVI has said that an influx of Anglicans to the Catholic tradition would be "a blessing for the entire Church."

Six years ago, tension in the church was exacerbated with the elevation of an openly gay Episcopalian cleric named Gene Robinson to the rank of bishop. The idea that an openly gay man who was living a family life with another man drove some in the Anglican church to the point of breaking away; a global schism loomed.

Three years ago, the Anglican church sought to avoid that schism by pursuing a moratorium on the elevation of gay clergy to the status of bishop, a moratorium that now seems on the verge of ending with the anticipated elevation of a lesbian in Los Angeles, Mary Glasspool, to the status of Episcopalian bishop.

Even before the impending end of the moratorium, however, the issue of whether gays belong in the church's clerical ranks has continued to divide the faith; some North American churches have even broken away from the U.S. branch of the faith, the Episcopalian church, in order to ally themselves with anti-gay parishes in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere.

Last year, conservative Anglicans declared that the schism was all but upon the church; that episode was one more in a string of demands from Anglicans seeking to convince North America's Episcopalians to "repent" for their support of GLBT members of the faith. Another splinter group of the Episcopalians, The Anglican Church in North America, formed last June; the new splinter does not accept that gays might serve God in certain capacities.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who is the head of the worldwide Anglican communion, is one of the faith's liberals, having supported equality in the church for gays and lesbians in the past, reported a Feb. 9 Times Online Times Online article and a Feb. 10 follow-up piece. But Williams' speeches of late have tacked rightward, geared to reassure hardliners for whom no compromise is acceptable; for that, Williams offered his apologies in a Feb. 9 speech to the faith's General Synod.

"There are ways of speaking about the question that seem to ignore these human realities or to undervalue them," Williams told the Synod. "I have been criticized for doing just this and I am profoundly sorry for the carelessness that could give such an impression."

Williams spoke of the church's "sacrificial and exemplary priests," among whom are gay men, and also noted that the faith has many gay and lesbian adherents. But the Archbishop did not abandon his attempts to keep the church intact, appealing to anti-gay hardliners to soften their stance and suggesting that the faith might adopt a "two-tiered" system that would relegate some dioceses to less than fully participating status. "It may be that the covenant creates a situation in which there are different levels of relationship between those claiming the name of Anglican," Williams told the Synod, which is the church's legislative body. "I don't at all want or relish this, but suspect that, without a major change of heart all round, it may be an unavoidable aspect of limiting the damage we are already doing to ourselves."

As for women serving in the capacity of bishops, Williams opined that although "Most hold that the ordination of women as bishops is good, something that will enhance our faithfulness to Christ and our integrity in mission," he also said that allowing women greater equality in the church's hierarchy would not be worth it if the result were to "corrupt [reform] or compromise it fatally," as in the possible scenario of opponents to women bishops leaving in droves for Catholicism. Above all, Williams cautioned, a schism in the faith would be a "betrayal" of the church's purpose.

However, Williams also lashed out at critics of a plan for church unity outlined in the Anglican Covenant, firmly contradicting the fears cited as motives for the criticisms. "There is no supreme court envisaged and the constitutional liberties of each province are explicitly safeguarded," Williams stated.

The Archbishop had words for all sides in the debate, lamenting what he called "the reduction of Christian relationships to vicious polemic and stony-faced litigation" as the argument over gays and women has continued.

A motion has been made for the Anglican church to officially acknowledge the newly formed The Anglican Church in North America, but Williams warned that, "Certain decisions made by some provinces impact so heavily on the conscience and mission of others that fellowship is strained or shattered and trust destroyed," adding, "The present effect of this is chaos--local schisms, outside interventions, all the unedifying stuff you will be hearing about, from both sides, in the debate on Lorna Ashworth's motion."

Some of Williams' remarks had been made previously, including the suggestion of splitting the church in such a way that different interpretations and traditions could be accommodated while still keeping the faith nominally unified. Moreover, the view that in some areas the struggle was rooted in identity politics had been expressed as recently as last summer. In the U.S., reported an Associated Press article from July 18, 2009, there was some umbrage at Williams' suggestion that politics, rather than theology, was driving the American debate. The head of Episcopalian GLBT equality group Integrity, Rev. Susan Russell, rejected that implication, but agreed with Williams that the Anglican Communion as a whole needed to find a way forward. "What the archbishop is really stating is the reality: that the structures that have served the Anglican Communion historically need some work," Russell told the press. "The 21st century is different than the 16th century."