Posted on 11/10/2005 5:53:53 AM PST by NYer
The first openly gay Episcopal bishop insisted Wednesday he was not encouraging Roman Catholics to leave their church when he criticized its view of homosexuals during a recent speech in London.
New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, at a service Friday commemorating the 10th anniversary of Changing Attitude, a British group which advocates full inclusion of gays in the Anglican faith community, noted during his talk that many Catholics in his home state were becoming Episcopalian.
"Pope Ratzinger may be the best thing that ever happened to the Episcopal Church," Robinson said, referring to former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. But Robinson said in a phone interview Wednesday from New Hampshire that he was recounting what a Catholic woman told him about why she was joining the Protestant denomination -- not expressing his own opinion. He said the woman was disappointed that the successor to Pope John Paul II would probably not make any significant changes in Catholic teaching.
Robinson said he had commented on Catholic issues in response to a question from a gay Catholic struggling with his place in his church. Catholic teaching considers gay sex "intrinsically disordered."
Robinson said he told the man that it was an "act of violence against gay folk" that the Vatican was considering instructing its seminaries to bar homosexuals and viewed it as an attempt by Catholic leaders to blame gays for the clergy sex abuse crisis. But Robinson said he told the young man that he should live "such that the light of Christ so shone through him that no one in his church could doubt his full membership in the body of Christ."
"I was not encouraging this young Roman Catholic man to be confrontative in any way," Robinson said.
Robinson's 2003 consecration sparked a crisis within world Anglicanism; the majority of Anglicans overseas believe gay relationships violate Scripture. It also has created tensions between the 77-million-member Anglican Communion and other denominations, including the Catholic Church. The Episcopal Church is the communion's U.S. branch.
When I took the classes in jr high we began in Sept and were confirmed in May.
My husband was an adult who converted after our marriage. His classes began in Sept and ended at Easter. He was confirmed in the Cathedral in Atlanta at the Easter Vigil.
Their "wedding". gag
I thought it is illegal in the United States still?
A gay Episcopal "wedding" (the groom?/bride? is a bishop)
not legaly but they had a church blessing service. His exwife and children attended IIRC.
If my husband did this to me it would be HIS funeral not a "wedding"
legaly should be legally for some reason I'm having trouble with the keyboard this evening.
This is a popular misconception. By granting an annulment, the Church is not saying that there never was a legal marriage, which is the social contsruct by which children are granted legitimacy. That's why, when there is a legal secular divorce, the kids are not considered 'illegitimate' because they were born when that marriage was still intact.
An annulment simply states that the SACRAMENT received by the couple during the Catholic Wedding Ceremony was not valid for whatever reason. If the Sacrament is not valid, it is not a valid religious union in the eyes of the Church, regardless of the legal union conferred by the license granted by the State.
So children born to parents whose Sacramental union is later annuled are no different from those of any secular couple who later got divorced.
The reason the Church does not allow re-marriage after a divorce without first having been granted an annulment is because you can't receive that Sacrament twice, validly.
My entire life, 75 years. My family came from England during the 19th century as Anglican Catholic Church members. You refer to a name, "episcopos" that took away the true purpose of Anglicanism for the promotion of homosexuality. ECUSA is the breakaway group. They left the teachings of Christ!
I doubt George Washington or the other founder's would have thought of themselves as Anglo-catholics, particularly the ones from VA as it has always been a bastion of low church.
I agree with you that ECUSA has departed from the faith, but they are still the recognized member of the Anglican Communion.
Do you attend an ECUSA parish or one of the Continuing Churches? I have a feeling we are talking past each other and would like to clarify terms here.
You're welcome and thank you for the prayers. It is easy to get impatient and wish it would all just move along and come to a conclusion, but God IS in charge and it will all work to His Glory even if I can't see it where I am now.
A good book on Anglican history is Ye Are the Body by Bonnell Spencer. It is out of print but is easily found used and is great for Anglican history through about 1950. I can't make any recommendations for a book about the last 50 years, it's been a mess and I'm not sure anyone has chronicled it objectively.
You don't get it! This "war" is about the Homosexual Agenda. George Washington, low church, would not have accepted "queers" as Bishops in his Church!
I told our choirmaster about this, and he went into orbit! He said (and he's right) people seem to think they can just trash Catholics and the Catholic church all day long.
Vicki oughta be fired for this, but won't be.
You are the one who does not seem to get it, so I repeat.
The Anglican Catholic Church is a breakaway from ECUSA and did not exist at the time of the fouding fathers. ECUSA is the national church in communion with Canterbury so they are the member chuch in America that is in THE Anglican Communion. The Anglican Catholic Church is a continuing church that came into being after the Congress of St. Louis in 1977. The Anglican Province of Christ the King came out of the same meeting.
Has ECUSA departed from the faith? I believe so but it didn't suddenly happen with the Robinson consecration. He is just the latest "battle". The "war" started long before Gene Robinson came on the scene. ECUSA started the drift away from orthodoxy years before he was consecrated and not enough spoke up to stop it. Now there is all this outrage about homosexuality, but where was the outrage 30-40 years ago over things like Bp Pike and women's ordination? They were milestones on the way to where ECUSA is today.
Are the ACC and the APCK orthodox? Yes! They uphold the historic Anglican faith, but they are NOT in communion with Canterbury so are not the official Anglican church in the USA.
At some point, there may be a realignment in the Communion. I am watching, waiting (and praying) to see where this all goes. I am thankful to have men of God like Abp Akinola of the Church of Nigeria standing for the faith within the Anglican Communion. Officially the Anglican Church in Nigeria as well as the national churches in many African nations, South America and the Far East who are in communion with Canterbury have declared themselves in impaired communion with ECUSA. Abp. Akinola has made friendly overtures to the Continuing Churches in the USA and in the future there may be some connection made between the Continuers and Bps like Akinola, but it has not happened yet.
I'm finished with this discussion because as I have said I think we are talking past each other.
Your summation is my opinion also! The future belongs to us.
Thanks for the explanation. "What God has joined let no man put asunder." People seem so shocked when the Church takes its words seriously.
You're welcome. Why not ask about this in your RCIA class? I'm sure that some of the others who are preparing to be received into the Church would benefit from knowing this. It is something that non-Catholics sometimes do not understand and for which the Church is criticized as a result.
Yes, yes I will. All they've said about it is that they are easier to get now, or maybe that's what people have told me.
It used to be in the Episcopal Church you had to get a letter from the Bishop giving you permission to marry in church if you had been divorced. I'm sure that's now pro forma, if not dispensed with altogether. And there was never any impact on one's state of grace as a result.
My Dad married my Stepmother, a Roman Catholic in the courtyard of the Episcopal church in 1972 in a civil ceremony. Probably because she wouldn't have felt comfortable stepping inside. They took me to midnight mass at the RC Cathedral in St. Louis at Christmas 1971 and my Mother about blew a gasket. I've never married.
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