Anaheim Statement Continues to Gain Supporters

August 24, 2009

The Anaheim Statement endorsed by 34 bishops at the close of the 76th General Convention in Anaheim, Calif., has added two more bishops to its list of supporters.

The Rt. Rev. Charles E. Jenkins, III, Bishop of Louisiana, and the Rt. Rev. Harry W. Shipps, retired Bishop of Georgia, have endorsed the letter affirming their loyalty to the Anglican Communion in the wake of the adoption of resolutions C056 and D025 ending the moratoria forbidding the consecration of partnered gay clergy as bishops and the authorization of rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.

However, Bishop Jenkins also was one of the bishops who voted against D025 but in favor of C056. He later said he voted for C056 because his colleagues had responded well to his plea for graciousness. “I felt I was honor-bound to vote for it because these bishops had done what I had asked them to do," he said. " I felt that the process was a ray of hope for The Episcopal Church.”

In a series of letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury and primates of the Anglican Communion written at the close of General Convention, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson have disputed the characterization of the adoption of the two resolutions as having ended the moratoria or a “walking apart” by the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion. the rest