The Archbishop of Canterbury warned today that the election of a lesbian bishop in the United States raises "very serious questions" for the entire Anglican church. Dr Rowan Williams added that the choice of Canon Mary Glasspool, who has lived with a woman partner since 1988, to be a suffragan in Los Angeles, had "important implications".
The fragile unity of the church will be further imperilled by Canon Glasspool's election – the second of an openly gay bishop in the US Episcopal Church.
It confirmed fears among evangelicals in the 70-million strong Anglican Communion that crucial votes at last summer's General Convention of the Episcopal Church had in effect ended the moratorium on gay bishops.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and a majority of the other 38 Anglican primates had requested a moratorium on gay bishops and same-sex blessings in an attempt to prevent the Communion from splitting between evangelicals and liberals.
The Rev Rod Thomas, of the conservative evangelical group Reform, said he was "deeply ashamed" that Canon Glasspool, 55, who has lived with her partner Becki Sander since 1988, hads been elected as assistant bishop in the diocese of Los Angeles.
He said that a schism was "absolutely inevitable".
Kendall Harmon, of the conservative diocese of South Carolina, said that the election of Canon Glasspool was damaging. “This decision represents an intransigent embrace of a pattern of life Christians throughout history and the world have rejected as against biblical teaching.”
However, influential Anglicans spoke up in support of Canon Glasspool's election.
Canon Giles Fraser, Chancellor of St Paul's and one of the founders of the liberal Inclusive Church network, said: "This is another nail in the coffin of Christian homophobia."
Liberals in England are increasingly frustrated that an Archbishop of Canterbury who was himself elected for his supposedly liberal views on this and other subjects has embraced conservative Christian values in the name of Church unity.
Pope Benedict XVI's offer of a home in the Roman Catholic Church to Anglo-Catholics, many of whom are opposed to the ordination of women bishops in England, has further jeporadised the unity which Dr Williams, like the Pope, has made the central plank of his leadership.
Dr Williams said in a statement: "The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect 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 process of selection, however, is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.
"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."
Canon Glasspool needs approval from a majority of dioceses in the Episcopal Church in the US before she can be consecrated. The US church has become more conservative in the wake of the gay controversy and recently the dioceses voted against the consecration of a bishop who is sympathetic towards the Buddhist tradition.
However, it is thought likely that this latest consecration will go ahead. The Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, is expected to officiate at the ceremony on May 15 in Los Angeles.
Canon Glasspool said: “Any group of people who have been oppressed because of any one isolated aspect of their persons yearns for justice and equal rights. ”
She was elected on a seventh ballot that included two other candidates, winning 153 clergy votes and 203 lay votes, just enough to emerge as the winner.
Campaigners for equality for lesbian and gay Christians welcomed the move and said a bishop's sexuality was a "secondary characteristic" in the qualities needed for proclaiming the Gospel.
The Very Rev Mark Kowalewski, Dean of St John's Cathedral in Los Angeles, said: "I don't think it's a referendum on electing a woman or a gay person. Those are secondary characteristics."
The Anglican Communion has been on the brink of schism, with the foundation of several conservative groups and the departure of some parishes and even dioceses from their home provinces, since Bishop Gene Robinson was consecrated in New Hampshire in 2003.
Court cases have dominated the issue in the US as conservatives and liberals fight over property and over who is the "true" Episcopal Church. The liberal Episcopal Church has won most of the property battles so far.
But support for gay bishops in the US is growing and it is unlikely that leaders of the Episcopal Church will turn back the clock.
Jim Naughton, of the Chicago Consultation, a group of Episcopal and Anglican clergy and lay people who lobby for equality for gays and lesbians, said Canon Glasspool’s election was “a liberation".
He said: “We’ve been around this issue for 30 years. It’s unreasonable to expect us to refrain from acting on the very prayerful conclusions that we’ve reached, especially when we think there are issues of justice involved.”
Bishop Robinson, who has won admiration around the world for the dignified manner with which he has handled the criticism against him and who has even received death threats and was advised to wear a bulletproof vest at his consecration, spoke to Canon Glasspool before the election.
He said: “One of the reasons she is so the right person for this is that she knows who she is and she knows she belongs to God and she knows everything else falls in place when you keep that central. She’s no stranger to people who think she shouldn’t be a priest because she’s a woman, or think she shouldn’t be a priest because she’s a lesbian.”
Canon Glasspool says in an essay on the Los Angeles diocese website that while she was at college she had an “intense struggle" between her sexuality and the call to become a priest.
“Did God hate me (since I was a homosexual), or did God love me? Did I hate (or love) myself?”
A graduate of Dickinson College and Episcopal Divinity School, Canon Glasspool was ordained in 1981, and has led parishes in Annapolis, Boston and Philadelphia.
Bishop Jon Bruno, who leads the Los Angeles diocese, urged Episcopal dioceses to approve Canon Glasspool’s election and not base their decision on fear of how other Anglicans would react.
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