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Bishop Stanton's Response to HOB "Covenant"
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
A brief word on the recent Covenant put forward by the House of Bishops.
The Primates' Communique of February called for a period of time in which the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada could consider how to respond to the Windsor Report according to their constitutional processes.
The Communique also called for two moratoria: one on the blessing of same-sex unions, and one on the consecration of bishops living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage.
The Communique was addressed to the very real question whether ECUSA and its Canadian sister are willing to accept the same teaching on matters of sexual morality as is generally accepted elsewhere in the Communion.
The strategies listed were intended to restore the full trust of our bonds of affection across the Communion.The House of Bishops in responding as it has by this Covenant leaves this basic question still unanswered.
The Covenant adopted by the Americans instead calls for a moratorium on the consent process for all bishops, and the House of Bishops pledges not to authorize rites nor to participate personally in such blessing services. The first is far too sweeping in that it will, for the period leading up to the next General Convention, mean that some dioceses where bishops are required to retire (at age 72) will have no diocesan bishop. The second does not go far enough, for some bishops have already said that this provision does not apply to clergy in their own dioceses blessing such unions.
The key request of the Communique that ECUSA voluntarily withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council was deferred entirely to the Episcopal Church's Executive Council. What was clearly in the purview of the House to make a recommendation to the Executive Council finds no place in the document. One is left to wonder whether this was simply overlooked or deliberately ignored.
The Covenant gives a heartfelt apology to the Communion for its part in the breach of the bonds of our affection, but the apology is couched in terms already familiar to everyone concerned: regret for the pain felt by others and repentance for not consulting our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion. This falls far short of the regret called for in the Windsor Report and of the repentance called for by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The most that can be said about the Covenant is that in taking up these recommendations, it buys some time. While it is an attempt to address the letter of the Communique, it fails to respond in the spirit of the Communique. In short, the Covenant postpones any decision by the Episcopal Church with respect to the Windsor Report until 2006 and compounds the crisis in the meantime.
It is hard to see how any of this makes much of a contribution to the continuing crisis in the Anglican Communion.
James M. Stanton VI is the Bishop of Dallas.
