Anglicans threaten defection

The Australian ^ | 23 December 2003 | Vanessa Walker

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Anglicans threaten defection

By Vanessa Walker, Religious affairs writer

December 23, 2003

One of the nation's most prominent Anglican priests has converted to Catholicism over dissatisfaction with gay and women clergy, as a delegation of conservative Anglicans goes to the Vatican for talks that could lead to more defections.

Discontent with the direction of the church has resulted in the Dean of Ballarat, William Edebohls, to convert to Catholicism.

Father Edebohls, who is married with children, was ordained a Catholic priest in Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral last month and is now assistant priest at St Peter's Church in East Keilor. The Pope allows married priests who convert to Catholicism to be dispensed of the rule of celibacy and to continue living with their spouses.

Another priest, the rector of All Saint's Church in Brisbane, David Chislett - who belongs to the Anglo-Catholic or high-church wing of the Anglican Church - visited Rome in October to meet Vatican representatives in "the early stages of explorations to a conversation".

The group he represented, called Forward in Faith, has a number of parishes in Australia and believes the 1992 ordination of women priests and the appointment this year of Gene Robinson, who is in a long-term gay relationship, as the bishop of New Hampshire in the US, are heretical innovations.

Father Chislett said that as the Anglican communion continued to fracture around the questions of homosexual clergy, pro-Vatican Anglo-Catholics would "recluster". The Anglo-Catholics, like the low-church Evangelicals, split around the ordination of gays and women.

Father Chislett said if the number of Anglo-Catholics who were dissatisfied reached critical mass, in the long term they could convert as a group - an option preferred by the Vatican.

"They may want to leave the Anglican communion and consider converting to a sensible but recognisably received faith," Father Chislett said.

"We are in a state of volatility and transition. There is a sense of disconnectedness and dismay for many. These are not sexist but doctrinal issues."

The Australian response to tensions within the church came as the leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, last week announced the terms of a commission set up to find a solution to the gay clergy impasse. The commission will meet in February and June and report back by September next year.

Since the abandoned elevation of gay but celibate Canon Jeffrey John in Reading, England, and the successful installation of Bishop Robinson in November, nine of the 38 Anglican provinces around the world have declared themselves to be in "impaired" or "broken communion" with all or part of the Anglican Church, called the Episcopal Church in the US.

The Uniting Church in Australia is also facing internal rebellion over the issue of gay clergy.

Conservatives who oppose the July decision to allow gay ministers at the discretion of individual presbyteries have rejected a three-point compromise by the church leaders.

Evangelical Members Union head Mary Hawkes said the offer of a year's consultation and report in time for the next national meeting in 2006 was not enough.

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