Bishop Michael Burrows writes in the current issue of the Cashel diocesan magazine - “These are not easy days for any of us in Episcopal ministry. Sometimes indeed one feels very constrained by office in terms of what one can or should say as one strives to facilitate the united pilgrimage in faith of the people of God.”
Bishop Burrows comments: “I have asked the editor to publish alongside this letter the recent Pastoral from the House of Bishops regarding matters of human sexuality. There are times when I feel very weary about the unending preoccupation of the Church with this subject. Yet I also recognize how it explores the deepest reaches of our being as individuals made in the image of God and how it requires contemporary Christians to apply the ultimate authority of Scripture to situations where our reason and our experience can betimes lead us into apparent conflict with what would have been regarded as the traditional teaching of the church. New members of the General Synod elected by the Diocesan Synod this October will find themselves called upon to attend, prior to the next session of the General Synod itself, a special conference at which in a balanced and substantial way it is hoped to address the issues set out in the pastoral letter, and so assist the church in working towards a common mind."
"The letter, apparently quite simple, in fact deserves careful analysis not least in its choice of particular words. Having affirmed – quoting the Prayer Book – the clear teaching of the church on marriage, the letter continues to describe faithfulness within marriage as the ‘normative’ context for sexual expression. It makes clear that an inevitable association of civil partnerships with sexual expression is not appropriate and it seeks to identify what may be ‘positive’ in their occurrence amongst the clergy as well as what is a cause of ‘hurt and confusion’. It reminds the church that it may be experiencing ‘disunity’ at present more because of different reactions to ‘recent events’ than because of those events themselves. It reminds us that the issues now to be studied by the church are ‘biblical, theological and legal’ and that this process cannot be over-hasty. Finally and very wisely it enjoins its readers to mind their language where it is easy to resort to what is ‘emotive or careless.’
“The members of the General Synod have weighty and crucial tasks ahead of them in terms of the Church’s witness to and engagement with the world that is God’s. And I suppose the deeper and most challenging issues are best expressed in a number of questions. What do faithful people do when they cannot agree about a matter the very importance of which they see differently? How do bishops promote the unity in truth of the Church while also ensuring that it is a place that does not solve its problems by compromising with hypocrisy? How do we handle issues that sometimes manifest themselves very differently in the varying cultural contexts that undoubtedly exist within this island? How, above all, do we ensure that the searching children of God are not alienated for ever from his church by its supposed moral confusion in one place or its zeal for assumed righteousness in another?
“Without wishing to sound self-pitying, these are not easy days for any of us in Episcopal
ministry. Sometimes indeed one feels very constrained by office in terms of what one can or should say as one strives to facilitate the united pilgrimage in faith of the people of God. I only hope and pray that the people of this diocese will engage in the process now commended by the bishops with commitment and courage.”