The head of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Bishop Jefferts Schori, shocked listeners of a BBC Interview when she announced that Gene Robinson - the controversial Episcopalian bishop who was consecrated bishop despite his being an openly practicing homosexual - is not the only homosexual and partnered bishop in the Anglican Church."[Robinson] is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop," Schori said in response to a question from her interviewer. "He is certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop. He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status."
The interviewer then asked Schori whether she meant that Robinson was not the only gay, partnered bishop in the Episcopalian Church. She responded, "Within our own church and within the Anglican Communion as a whole."
The revelation that there are more practicing homosexual bishops - presumably bishops whom Schori is personally aware of - in the worldwide Anglican Church is likely to only further the divide in the worldwide Anglican Church.
While this divide has been fomenting for several years, largely following the public consecration of Gene Robison, it made itself known most dramatically several weeks ago when a number of conservative bishops and clergy announced a global conference for traditional-minded Anglicans, to be held in Israel mere weeks before the global Lambeth conference. This conference is being perceived as an alternative to Lambeth and a challenge to the established worldwide Anglican Communion.
A number of the bishops who have called the so-called Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFC) have in the past suggested that the American Episcopalian Church should not be invited to the Lambeth conference, due to its decision to consecrate Robinson bishop, and a general movement on the part of the Episcopalian Church to accept and bless homosexual behavior.
Schori said that this idea felt to her "much like declining an invitation to a dinner party because somebody I don't like might be there. My understanding of the planned program for the Lambeth Conference is one that has the possibility of letting people build relationships. I think that's a remarkable gift. I think it would be very sad to go there and simply spend all our time consumed by legislation and I don't think that's what's planned."
Currently, however, Robinson himself has not been invited to Lambeth, a fact that Schori said she regretted. "I would very much hope [he would still be invited]," she said. "We're still hoping that that might be the case." She would not say whether or not she had received any indication that Robinson would still be invited to the conference.
When pressed by the BBC interviewer as to whether or not Schori supported those bishops and priests who were blessing homosexual couples despite pressure from Canterbury to cease all such ceremonies, Schori side-stepped the question, answering, "That's not a matter for me to say yea or nay, it's a matter of pastoral practice in individual congregations, in the same way that I don't enter into decisions about whether or not it's appropriate to bless a fleet of battleships going off to war."
Schori also seemed to suggest that support for homosexual behavior was consonant with the traditional position, the "roots" of the Anglican Church, saying, "My hope is that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole might remember our roots, our traditional valuing of diversity and our traditional sense that worshiping together despite differing views is what holds us together." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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