TLC Editorial: Think, and Act, Globally

December 9, 2009

Soon after the Episcopal Church’s General Convention adjourned in July, many bishops assured their people that two resolutions, one regarding ordained ministry and the other regarding blessings for same-sex couples, had changed nothing and were merely descriptive of the Episcopal Church’s daily reality. Bishops suggested that the test of Resolution D025 would not center on the election of another openly partnered gay or lesbian bishop, but on whether that person received sufficient consents to be made a bishop.

By the words of these bishops, then, the test begins even now, before the first paperwork arrives in the hands of bishops and standing committees regarding the election of the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool as a suffragan bishop for the Diocese of Los Angeles. The Archbishop of Canterbury has made no secret of what he hopes those bishops and standing committees will remember.

“The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications,” he wrote within a day of the election. “The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.”

Leaders of the Episcopal Church have heard, and disregarded, such warnings before. They were warned in 2003 that their consecration of an openly partnered gay man would tear at the very fabric of the Anglican Communion, and they did it anyway. Six years later, after pleading ignorance of how much one decision could affect the rest of the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church has arrived at a similar moment of decision. the rest