Dear Diocesan Family,

 

    I said last month that I did not think there would be any surprises in the meeting of the House of Bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury.  I was wrong.  The House leaned much farther toward what the Archbishop and the Primates of the Anglican Communion asked of us than I believe anyone expected.

 

   In the end we produced two statements (see links at left).  One of them is a “contextual” narrative about the whole of our experience in New Orleans, touching upon a wide variety of specific topics.  The other is our response to the requests made of us by the Primates in their Communiqué from Dar es Salaam last February.

 

   In their Communiqué the Primates asked us to:

·        Make an unequivocal covenant that the Bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their Dioceses or through the General Convention, and

·        Confirm that the passing of Resolution B033 of the 75^th General Convention (in 2006) means that a candidate for Episcopal orders living in a same-sex relationship will not receive the necessary consents (from the Bishops as well as from the Standing Committees) until or unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Anglican Communion as a whole.

    In my opinion, we did not fully comply with either of these requests, but we came much closer than I ever thought we would.

 

    The Bishops made a distinction between “public Rites” and “private blessings.”  In many Dioceses permission to use officially authorized public Rites has been withdrawn, and the House as a whole has, indeed, confirmed that until or unless there is a “new consensus” there will be no such authorization.  There is, however, an implicit acknowledgement that in some places private blessings are still being offered as part of the “pastoral response” the Primates themselves said might be called for.

 

    In reaffirming B033 from last year’s General Convention, the Bishops stated that “exercising restraint” means withholding consent, and that specifically pertains to non-celibate gay and lesbian persons.

 

    Many voices have already been raised, denouncing the Bishops’ Statement as “non-compliance.”  I disagree.  I would characterize the decisions of the House of Bishops as being in partial compliance with what the Primates asked of us.

 

    Unfortunately, the Bishops failed to even mention a third request from the Primates, that we put an end to the lawsuits that are being pressed in many Dioceses against congregations that are attempting to leave The Episcopal Church and yet retain “their” properties. 

 

    In our failure to do all that the Primates asked of us I was unable to vote for the Bishops’ Statement, but I was grateful to see a far higher level of concern for the unity of the Communion evident throughout our meeting than I have ever witnessed previously.  Whether or not that level was high enough remains to be seen.  Ultimately, of course, it is for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates to make that call.

 

            On behalf of all the Bishops, I thank you for your prayers.

 

With love to all of you in our Lord,

 

+ John W. Howe