Church Times: Toronto same-sex blessings rile conservatives

19 November, 2010

GUIDELINES for clergy considering requests by same-sex couples for blessings have been issued for the An­glican diocese of Toronto.

The guidelines state that they are a pastoral response to committed gay and lesbian couples, and “not an authorized rite of the Anglican dio­cese of Toronto”. This distinction is important, since the introduction of a rite would invite censure from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion Office.

The College of Bishops acknow­ledges that the guidelines might strain the “gracious restraint” called for in the 2004 Windsor report, which included moratoria on ap­point­ing someone in a same-sex relationship as a bishop, authorising same-sex blessings, and intervening in another province.

Breaching these moratoria has earned sanctions for both the Epis­copal Church in the US, in which a lesbian bishop was con­secrated in Los Angeles, and the Province of the Southern Cone, which has extended its oversight to conservative dioceses and parishes in the US and Canada. the rest