Over 3,000 Anglicans are lobbying for the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion to retract a recent statement he made on the election of The US Episcopal Church’s second openly gay bishop.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to exercise moral leadership to protect gays and lesbians in Uganda and has instead exercised political pressure to attack a bishop-elect in Los Angeles because she is a lesbian,” state the members of the Facebook group “Anglicans who want THIS statement from Canterbury”, which has recruited over 3,000 people since it was created this past Tuesday.
“As Anglicans who treasure their Communion and expect more from their Archbishop, in the Advent spirit of John the Baptist's cry to the religious leaders of his time, we call on Rowan Williams to repent of his earlier statement and issue this one instead,” they say.
They then offer a three-paragraph statement addressing the "lack of outrage ... by the Church of Uganda" regarding the punishments included in the country's contentious Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
On Saturday, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles paved the way for the Rev Canon Mary Glasspool to become the second openly gay bishop in The Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion by electing her to the office of bishop suffragan after a seventh round of voting.
Following Glasspool’s election as the second of two suffragan bishops, Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, released a statement, saying that the election “raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole”.
“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,” he added, referring to the plea of conservative Anglican leaders to The Episcopal Church in the US for a moratorium on consecrating practicing homosexuals as bishop.
Since the election of The Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop in 2003, relations between the US Anglican arm and the rest of the worldwide Anglican Communion have been strained to the point of tearing.
