Thursday, July 23, 2009

Gay bishops in the Episcopal Church: is the moratorium on or off?


From the Examiner

Contrary to what has been in the press recently, the Episcopal Church has not swung ever wider its doors to gay and lesbian bishops; neither, however, has it closed them. Actually, the door is about where it has been all the time in all branches of ordained ministry -- open to all persons regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation, and subject to the discernment and consent of the diocesan Bishop and Standing Committee.

The resolution passed earlier this month at General Convention in Anaheim, CA, known by its number, D025, does not call off the moratorium but "basically describes the situation. It does not prescribe any action," says the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of North Carolina.

WHAT, EXACTLY, DOES THAT MEAN? If a moratorium existed at all, Curry explained, it existed because individual bishops and Standing Committees in the dioceses, both of which must give their consent before a person may be consecrated, have chosen, on their own, not to give that consent. "D025: has it repealed or ended the moratorium? No. The moratorium exists or ends with the actions of the Bishops and the Standing Committees," Bp. Curry said.

"B033 [the resolution passed in the previous General Convention] did not establish a moratorium because it can't," Bp. Curry said. "General Convention can encourage and cajole. It cannot direct. Only bishops and standing committees, exercising their prerogatives, can maintain or end a moratorium. A resolution of General Convention, unless it amends the Constitution and Canons or the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, is non binding. ...The giving or withholding of consent is a constitutional prerogative of Standing Committees and Bishops diocesan."

The rest is here-

http://www.examiner.com/x-10271-Charlotte-Episcopal-Examiner~y2009m7d22-Gay-bishops-in-the-Episcopal-Church-is-the-moratorium-on-or-off

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