The Anglican Diocese of Toronto has agreed to allow pastoral services of prayer and blessing for same-sex couples, but will not authorize sacramental rites for the blessing of same-sex unions or gay marriages.At a Jan 29 diocesan council meeting, Bishop Colin Johnson announced that a year-long consultation process conformed to the Canadian House of Bishops’ 2007 statement committing the church to “develop the most generous pastoral response possible within the current teaching of the church.”
The policy stops short, however of authorizing formal rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.
The proposal put forth by Bishop Johnson and his four episcopal assistants stated that the bishops would give permission to a “to a limited number of parishes, based on episcopal discernment, to offer prayers and blessing (but not the nuptial blessing) to same-sex couples in stable, long-term, committed relationships.”
Congregations seeking to implement the pastoral blessings would need to receive the prior authorization of the bishop, and a “particular rite will not be authorized.”
According to a report printed in the Toronto diocesan newspaper, the decision to authorize services for same-sex couples was a pastoral response to the needs of a particular constituency, and would not be brought before the diocesan synod for legislative action.
He said the diocese was “committed to remaining in alignment with the decisions and recommendations of General Synod and Lambeth," and that "at the same time, we are trying to act in accordance with the House of Bishops' statement to develop the most generous pastoral response to our local situation. Given that, we think that a pastoral response and not a legislative one is the correct way to move forward."
"There is no result that will fully satisfy those on all sides," Bishop Johnson was quoted as saying by his diocesan newspaper. "But at the moment this is what we, as bishops, feel is the right thing to do."
In an open letter to the Toronto bishops, the Dean of Wycliffe College in Toronto, the Rev Ephraim Radner said the distinction drawn by the diocese between pastoral and sacramental blessings was too fine.
“It is hard to escape the fact that the process you have now set in motion — one that involves public proposals, discussions, synodical actions, and all dealing with a way of ordering a particular ‘pastoral response’ that involves episcopal oversight and particular permissions, following directives that involve the nature of prayers – cannot avoid being seen as one of ecclesial ‘authorization’ of liturgical matters surrounding same-sex unions,” he said.
Dr Radner, one of the leaders of the Anglican Communion Institute, and a member of Anglican Covenant Design Group, said the new policy ran contrary to the wider mind of the Communion. While the bishops may have believed they were only giving a structure to a an arrangement for “private prayers”, the “very process you are following” calls for “formal, episcopal, diocesan, public, liturgical prayers of blessing.”
It would be “very difficult indeed to make the case and persuade others” that what Toronto had now done violated the Lambeth Conference moratorium and had in opposition to the “concerns of many Anglicans around the world.”
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(Source: RI)