The Center has Held
A Letter from Bishop Lee to the Diocese of Virginia
On the last day of the General Convention, Wednesday, June 21, with effective leadership exercised both by the Presiding Bishop, Bishop Griswold, and the Presiding Bishop-elect, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Convention adopted several resolutions that together represent a substantive response to the Windsor Report and demonstrated that the Episcopal Church is committed to its life in the Anglican Communion, listens to the concerns of Anglicans worldwide who have been critical of our former decisions that have been perceived as unilateral and desires unity in mission, especially in partnership with Anglicans worldwide.
On Tuesday, June 20, the House of Deputies defeated a resolution that committed the church to specific restraints on the consecration of candidates for the episcopate in same-gender partnerships. The bishops adopted a new resolution on the next day committing the church to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of “any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life is a challenge to the wider church.” The bishops, after considerable discussion and interventions by Bishops Griswold and Jefferts Schori in favor of the resolution and opposed to attempts to amend it, adopted the resolution unchanged. Wednesday afternoon, after much debate and a courageous intervention by Bishop Jefferts Schori, the deputies voted for the bishops’ resolution by a wide margin. The Virginia deputation was unanimous in its support for the resolution.
The far right of the church already is filling blogs with statements of disassociation and repudiation. The fact is the General Convention has responded substantially and seriously to the Windsor Report. But some did not get their way: gay and lesbian people and their supporters who feel we have stepped back, and the extreme right, who find it so difficult to work with those with whom they disagree.
The vital center of the church is intact. Much of what Convention accomplished is in the budget and in unheralded resolutions that strengthened the mission of the church.
This Convention demonstrated the pain of our differences but even more the promise of commitment to the mission of the Church.
Faithfully,
Peter James Lee
Bishop of Virginia
