wfn.org | Episcopalians: First same-sex blessing in New Westminster met with mixed reactio

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

May 30, 2003

2003-120

Episcopalians: First same-sex blessing in New Westminster met 
with mixed reactio

by Jane Davidson

(ACC-News )The blessing May 28 of a same-sex union in the 
Anglican Church of Canada's diocese of New Westminster has been 
met with both joy and dismay.

Less than a week after the rite of blessing of same-sex unions 
was issued by the bishop of the diocese of New Westminster to 
six parishes which had requested it, the Rev. Margaret Marquardt 
blessed the 21-year same-sex relationship of Anglicans Michael 
Kalmuk, 49, and Kelly Montfort, 62, at St. Margaret's, Cedar 
Cottage Church in east Vancouver.

Bishop Michael Ingham had authorized the controversial and 
contested rite on Friday, May 23, just days before an 
international primates meeting declared itself unable as a body 
to support same-sex blessings, and one week in advance of his 
own diocesan synod, May 30-31.

The blessing came one year after the New Westminster diocesan 
synod voted to allow same-sex blessings in parishes requesting 
them. It was the third time that synod had voted on the issue; 
the bishop had previously withheld his consent to the decisions 
in 1998 and 2001, but agreed to go ahead last year when 
presented with a clear majority vote of 63 per cent in favor. 
That decision led to eight parishes walking out of the synod 
meeting, declaring themselves in impaired communion with the 
diocese.

Williams expresses 'sadness and disquiet'

In a media release the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, 
expressed his "sadness and disquiet at the move" by the diocese. 
Williams had said previously that there was no theological 
consensus in support of same-sex unions.

"In taking this action and ignoring the considerable 
reservations of the church, repeatedly expressed and most 
recently by the primates, the diocese has gone significantly 
further than the teaching of the church or pastoral concern can 
justify and I very much regret the inevitable tension and 
division that will result from this development," the archbishop 
said.

Williams was referring to the statement from the international 
primates' meeting, held just days earlier in Brazil and attended 
by the Canadian primate, Archbishop Michael Peers.

Chris Ambidge, spokesperson for Integrity, a lobby group for gay 
and lesbian Anglicans, said his group has been working for 28 
years "for more full membership of gays and lesbians in the body 
of their church.

"This is a very significant step along that path and I praise 
God that this has happened," he said. "In retrospect, I'm glad 
that Bishop Ingham has been as careful as he has been. But there 
comes a time when you need to move."

International infighting

Tension, infighting and recrimination over the same-sex issue 
spread beyond the boundaries of the diocese to the international 
forum and saw Ingham publicly chastised last fall by the 
outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. In his last 
presidential address at the Anglican Consultative Council 
meeting in Hong Kong in September, 2002, Carey singled out 
Ingham for his diocese's decision to allow the blessing of 
same-sex unions "without regard for the rest of us and against 
the clear statement of Lambeth '98."

The Canadian primate gave a different interpretation of the 
international primates' recent statement in a media release 
issued within hours of Williams' reaction.

"I share their (the primates') assessment that the absence of 
consensus makes it impossible to speak with one mind in support 
of the actions of the synod and bishop of the diocese of New 
Westminster," said Peers.

"At the same time, reports that characterize the primates' 
letter as a direct and unanimous repudiation of those actions 
are wrong. The primates do not, at our meetings, either move 
resolutions or take votes. We seek the deepest possible 
expression of unity in whatever terms are available to us.

"In this case, our common mind accurately reflects the potential 
for division and the absence of theological consensus among us 
and within the churches that make up the Anglican Communion."

Campaign for an alternate bishop

Meanwhile, the group of parishes which walked out of synod last 
year in protest of the same-sex vote expressed its displeasure 
with the release of a blessing rite.

"This unilateral action," said the group in a statement, 
"isolates the diocese and seeks to pre-empt the issue scheduled 
to be addressed at General Synod 2004. Never before has a single 
diocese so abruptly and brazenly repudiated the church's 38 
primates and their desire for Anglican unity."

The Rev. Trevor Walters of St. Matthews, Abbotsford, a 
spokesperson for the group which calls itself the Anglican 
Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW), said he felt "grief, great 
sadness and a great sense of having lost the church as we have 
known it" when he heard of the blessing.

He predicted that the blessings in New Westminster would make 
the ACiNW coalition grow rapidly.

The ACiNW had campaigned the church for months for an alternate 
bishop and recently received an offer from Bishop Terrence 
Buckle of the diocese of the Yukon to be their bishop until 
General Synod 2004. Ingham called the offer interference and 
asked that Buckle be disciplined.

Instead, Ingham asked Bishop William Hockin of the diocese of 
Fredericton to act as "episcopal visitor" to clergy and parishes 
which do not support same-sex blessings. An episcopal visitor 
may provide pastoral support but has no jurisdiction in the 
diocese.

Walters said, "We have had at least 10 churches tell us that as 
soon as a blessing went ahead they would join us in asking for 
Bishop Buckle to be bishop."

Ingham caught by surprise

Ingham said upon releasing the rite that it was not a marriage 
ceremony but, rather, "a blessing of permanent and faithful 
commitments between persons of the same sex in order that they 
may have the support and encouragement of the church in their 
lives together under God."

In an interview, Ingham said the St. Margaret's blessing caught 
him by surprise. "I found out about it when a reporter called me 
for a comment," he said. He noted that the parish had been one 
of the original movers of the motion in favor of same-sex 
blessings.

The timing of the rite had nothing to do with the primates' 
meeting but was done to complete his commitment to synod made a 
year earlier, Ingham said.

"I agreed a year ago to complete this process. It's been a long 
process of trying to be reconciled with those who find this 
difficult," he said. Earlier this year facilitated talks aimed 
at reconciliation between the ACiNW on one side and the bishop 
and diocesan representatives on the other, broke down.

Parishes authorized to use the rite are St. Margaret's, St. 
Mark's, St. Paul's and Christ Church Cathedral, all in 
Vancouver, St. Agnes, North Vancouver, and St. Laurence, 
Coquitlam.

------

Letter sent to six parishes in the Diocese of New Westminster 
authorizing a rite of blessing of committed same sex couples.

The Rite

A theological paper of the rite by the Rev. Dr. Richard Leggett, 
Vancouver School of Theology

--Jane Davidson is a staff writer for the Anglican Journal, the 
newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada.