General Convention pulls back from the brink at the last minute
By Douglas LeBlanc and staff reporters

Douglas LeBlanc at the General Convention in Ohio, US, and staff reporters

DURING the nine legislative days of the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in Ohio, the only one to feature a storm — dark clouds, heavy rain, and rolling thunder included — was Wednesday. The worst of it seemed to arrive about the time that the Presiding Bishop, the Most Revd Frank Griswold, began addressing a last-minute joint-session about the importance of responding in a substantial way to the Windsor report.

Normally Bishop Griswold might make a pithy remark about the drama of the moment, but he was not his usual self on the final day of convention. He was focused, direct, and, when presiding later in the House of Bishops, testy when bishops began trying to revise still another effort at addressing the Windsor report.

"Humility is not an easy virtue, but it is very much required in this season," Bishop Griswold told the more than 800 deputies and more than 100 bishops seated before him. "Humility requires at times a stance of restraint in order that something larger can happen. There are times when what may appear to be a step backward may be called for in order to go forward" .

The step backward, at least for the Episcopal Church’s advocates for gay and lesbian inclusion, was resolution B033, which asked standing committees and diocesan bishops "to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion".
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