Updated again Tuesday
The Church of Ireland has published Statement by the Archbishop of Armagh on Civil Partnerships and Serving Clergy.
Following media reports on the issue of civil partnerships and serving clergy, the following statement from the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, The Most Revd Alan Harper, was provided to the BBC NI ‘Talkback’ programme and the Belfast Newsletter today, 7 September 2011:
’The recent civil partnership of a serving ordained Church of Ireland clergyman presents a new situation within the Church of Ireland. It is true to say that within the Church there is a range of views on same–sex relationships and there will also be a range of views and reactions to civil partnerships concerning clergy. I acknowledge that this issue has caused strong feelings and concern. While there are acknowledged differences of opinion within the Church, suggestions that it might split are, I hope, premature. In 2003 the Bishops of the Church of Ireland issued a pastoral letter on human sexuality which reflected the varied spectrum of views within the Church. The General Synod of the Church of Ireland has not made any statement or decision in addition to that. The Bishops will be addressing the matter again shortly. I trust that the Church and its bishops will continue to address this subject with mutual respect. The state has provided a right in law for same gender persons to have their partnerships recognized and specific rights conferred through civil partnership, This is not recognized as marriage by the Church of Ireland or by the civil authorities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Marriage is understood by the Church to comprise a lifelong and exclusive commitment by one man and one woman to each other. The Church has no provision or proposals for any liturgy for the blessing of civil partnerships and there are no authorized public rites of blessing for same–gender relationships.’
Some of the press reports:
Belfast Newsletter Cleric confirms gay partnership and ‘Dismay at CoI gay union’ and Gay row ‘may split church’
BBC Minister Rev Tom Gordon civil partnership ‘welcomed’
Irish Times Senior cleric in same-sex ceremony
Christian Today ‘Sorrow’ after senior Church of Ireland cleric confirms civil partnership
Friday morning updates
Changing Attitude Ireland has welcomed the news: CA Ireland congratulates Dean Tom Gordon and his civil partnership.
And this is the (later, fuller version of) the statement, jointly issued by the committees of the Church of Ireland Evangelical Fellowship, the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy, New Wine (Ireland) and Reform Ireland: Further joint statement by Evangelical groups in C of I.
In addition to that, Reform Ireland has published Civil partnership shame of the Church of Ireland.
Friday afternoon update
Belfast Telegraph Church of Ireland split fear over Irish cleric’s civil partnership
This story misquotes Canon Ian Ellis, editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette, as saying that the Dean had not informed his bishop beforehand, but according to the Gazette’s own report (available online only to subscribers):
The Dean said that he had told his Bishop, the Rt Revd Michael Burrows, before proceeding with the civil partnership, and confirmed that no assurances were required of him regarding a celibate lifestyle, as is required in the Church of England. However, he also said that he did not regard civil partnership as equivalent to marriage.
update Tuesday
The Belfast Telegraph has, in effect, corrected this error, see Bishop under fire over cleric’s gay marriage.
65 CommentsThe Church of Ireland Gazette reports: Anglican Communion ‘quite close to being dysfunctional’, senior English layman tells the Gazette.
In an interview reported in the current issue of The Church of Ireland Gazette, the Chair of the Church of England General Synod’s House of Laity, Dr Philip Giddings, speaks to the Gazette editor, Canon Ian Ellis, about the Anglican Covenant and the issue of women bishops in the Church of England.
The text of the interview report can be found at the link above.
A 23-minute audio of the whole interview can be found here.
(In the audio, the subject of the Covenant runs from 03:00-13:45 and the women bishops issue, including comment on the Ordinariate, runs from 13:45 to the end)
25 CommentsWilliam Crawley recently mentioned on his blog the new pastoral resource published by Changing Attitude Ireland which was launched during the recent CofI General Synod by Bishop Michael Burrows.
The booklet “I think my son or daughter is gay” by Gerry Lynch is available as a PDF here.
Or as a Google document here.
23 CommentsUpdated
The Church of Ireland has voted in favour of the Anglican Covenant. Here is what the official press release, issued last Friday, says:
The General Synod of the Church of Ireland meeting today in Armagh voted in favour of the following Motion on the Anglican Covenant:
‘Seeing that the Anglican Covenant is consonant with the doctrines and formularies of the Church of Ireland, the General Synod hereby subscribes the Covenant.’
The vote was passed by a large majority of the House of Representatives. The House of Bishops also voted as a separate House, approving the motion, also by a large majority.
The Motion was proposed by the Bishop of Cashel & Ossory, the Rt Revd Michael Burrows, and seconded by the Bishop of Down & Dromore, the Rt Revd Harold Miller. In the course of the Synod debate it was stressed that the word ‘subscribe’ in relation to the Covenant, rather than ‘adopt’, was important. Subscribing the Covenant is an indication that the Church of Ireland has put its collective name to and aligned with it. The Covenant sits under the Preamble and Declaration of the Church and does not affect the sovereignty of the Church of Ireland or mean any change in doctrine.
So subscription is something different to adoption. And South East Asia used the term accession.
Confused? If so, then these three four blog articles may not help you.
Catholicity and Covenant has Quincy, SE Asia & Ireland: Covenant questions.
Bosco Peters at Liturgy has Anglican Covenant meaningless.
Tobias Haller at In a Godward Direction has The Anglican Covenant — Let’s be clear.
Alan Perry has What goes on in the Emerald Isle?
8 CommentsThe (slightly shortened) texts of the papers delivered at the recent event in Dublin are now online at the website of Search.
“The Proposed Anglican Covenant – a step forward or a step too far?”
1 CommentThe SEARCH Colloquium on “The Proposed Anglican Covenant – a step forward of a step too far?” took place in TCD on Saturday March 12th and has been judged a great success. Over 50 people attended the Thomas Davis Theatre to hear speakers from England, Wales and Ireland (both North and South) consider the decision on our response to the Covenant to be made at the General Synod in Armagh in May.
After a welcome from the TCD chaplain and secretary of the SEARCH editorial committee, the Revd Darren McCallig, and a brief introduction from the editor, Canon Ginnie Kennerley, the speakers and their subjects were as follows:
- Ms Kate Turner, C of I lay representative on the Anglican Consultative Council: “A Brief Historical Introduction to the Covenant.”
- The Rt Revd Gregory Cameron, Bishop of St Asaph, former Deputey Secretary General of the Anglican Communion: “The Case for the Covenant.”
- The Revd Jonathan Clatworthy, general secretary of Modern Church: “Reservations about the Covenant.”
- The Rt Revd Michael Burrows, Bishop of Cashel and Ossory and former C of I clerical representative on the Anglican Consultative Council: “The Implications for the Church of Ireland.”
The panel discussion which followed was chaired by the Revd Professor John Bartlett, chairman of the SEARCH editorial committee.
The Church of Ireland Gazette reports:
Recommended terms of C. of I. response to Anglican Covenant explained at colloquium meeting
At a recent special colloquium in Dublin on the proposed Anglican Covenant, the Bishop of Cashel and Ossory, the Rt Revd Michael Burrows, told participants that the Church of Ireland General synod’s standing Committee had decided that the General synod next May would be asked to “subscribe” the document, but not “adopt” it.
Bishop Burrows distinguished between the two terms, commenting that “the difficulty with the word ‘adopt’ is that you make the thing you adopt part of yourself”, and pointed out that the Covenant would be “a freely entered into regulation of our external relationships”, but that the Church of Ireland could “walk away”.
He said that, while it had originally been felt that a special Bill would be required, the standing Committee had now opted for a simple motion for next May’s General synod in Armagh. Bishop Burrows quoted the text of the scheduled motion: “seeing that the Anglican Covenant is consonant with the doctrines and formularies of the Church of Ireland, the General synod hereby subscribes the Covenant.”
There is also an Editorial comment titled Approaching the Covenant. Scroll down the same link to read it in full.
6 CommentsThe recent colloquium sponsored by Search and the TCD church of Ireland chaplaincy on the proposed Anglican covenant (report, page 1) heard excellent addresses on the subject, but it was Bishop Michael Burrows’ explanation of the procedure being followed in the church of Ireland regarding a formal response to the text that gave rise to most discussion. Indeed, semantics were to take centre stage, with the implications of the words “adopt” and “subscribe” being explored.
Bishop Burrows, hotfoot from this month’s Standing committee meeting when the procedure to be followed had been decided, referred to the three options for the General Synod: a Special Bill, an Ordinary Bill and a motion. A Special Bill, Bishop Burrows reminded everyone, would involve a two-year process and two-thirds majorities at every stage, unlike an Ordinary Bill or a motion, either of which would be taken within one meeting of the Synod and would require only simple majorities. The motion procedure had been chosen, he reported.
Then came the semantics. Bishop Burrows explained that the term “subscribe” had been preferred to “adopt”, as to adopt something involved taking it into one’s being. From a legal perspective, the term “subscribe” apparently is weaker than “adopt”, leaving the Church of Ireland more able, as Bishop Burrows put it, to “walk away”. Nonetheless, Bishop Burrows insisted on the “honourable” use of the term “subscribe” in the Church of Ireland, but that did not prevent the semantic distinction still making the planned motion sound rather like a highly nuanced pre-nuptial agreement arising from doubts about the contract in the first place, or a kind of arms’ length embracing of a loved one. Fine words of commitment may be uttered, but signing on the dotted line is carefully managed in order to try to avoid over-involvement. Bearing all of this in mind, one could be forgiven for wondering to what extent, if the covenant is considered unsuitable for the General Synod to “adopt”, there is any real heart on the part of those concerned even for “subscribing” it…
The Church of Ireland Gazette has an exclusive story. See Church of England should drop plans for women Bishops if major split would result, Bishop Tom Wright tells Gazette.
Speaking to [Ian Ellis] the Gazette editor in an interview while visiting Ireland, Bishop Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham and now a Research Professor at the University of St Andrews, has said that the Church of England should not proceed to the consecration of women as Bishops if the move were to create a large division.
He said: “my own position is quite clear on this, that I have supported women Bishops in print and in person. I’ve spoken in Synod in favour of going that route, but I don’t think it’s something that ought to be done at the cost of a major division in the Church.”
Bishop Wright warned that if the Church of England were not able to resolve the matter “a ‘quick fix’ resolution” would be “a recipe for long-term disaster”…
And asked about the Anglican Covenant, he said this:
Asked if he thought the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant, aimed at keeping the global Communion together, would become a reality, Bishop Wright said: “I think so, because I don’t think really there’s any alternative.” He said the Communion could not afford to have “the kind of unstructured mess that we’ve had”.
Bishop Wright said that the Covenant “doesn’t foreclose on particular issues”. Rather, he explained, it “provides a framework within which you can have the discussion in a way which tries to keep all parties at the table. Obviously if parties decide to walk away from the table that’s their business, but without some sort of a structured framework what happens is, as always, that the loudest voices tend to win, or at least drown out the other ones, and I have seen that happen and it’s not a pretty sight.”
Asked to comment on what would happen if the Church of England rejected the Covenant proposal, Bishop Wright said: “That is always a possibility, and if that happens, then I suppose the thing would be dead in the water. But that’s a notional possibility which I don’t actually see as realistic.” Bishop Wright was visiting Ireland to give a series of talks to the 18th-21st October Down and Dromore clergy conference, held in Donegal Town.
The entire interview was recorded, and you can listen to the audio file here.
29 CommentsThe Church of Ireland Gazette reports:
Christina Baxter, the Chair of the Church of England General Synod’s House of Laity, Principal of St John’s Theological College in Nottingham and a lay canon of Southwell, has paid tribute to those preparing for ordination in the Church of Ireland. In an interview with the Gazette editor during a visit at the end of August to the Diocese of Down and Dromore, where she led the Bishop’s Bible Week, Dr Baxter said that the Church of Ireland ordinands were all doing a professional certificate through St John’s College, which prepared them for Master’s level training. She said she had been working with the Church of Ireland Theological Institute Principal, Dr Maurice Elliott, on these arrangements.
For the full interview, go to this page.
Her views on the progress of English legislation on Women in the Episcopate may be of interest.
4 CommentsThe Church of Ireland held its annual General Synod in Christ Church Cathedral Dublin from Thursday 6 to Saturday 8 May, 2010. There is an official Synod 2010 website with links to reports, news items and photographs.
One debate included some discussion of the proposed Anglican Covenant:
Inter-Anglican and Ecumenical Relations Highlighted in Standing Committee Debate.
Here is the Anglican Communion section of the Standing Committee report.
5 Comments3. ANGLICAN COMMUNION
In June 2009, the Standing Committee appointed the Anglican Covenant Working Group to examine Section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge Draft of the Anglican Covenant and to recommend a response.
In September 2009, the Standing Committee adopted the report of the Anglican Covenant Working Group (Appendix B on page 233) as the official response to Section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge draft of the Anglican Covenant from the Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland. This response was then forwarded to the Anglican Communion Office.
The final text of the Anglican Covenant (Appendix C on page 234) was submitted to the Standing Committee in January 2010. The Committee agreed to refer the final text of the Anglican Covenant to the Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue to enable the Commission to make a recommendation concerning appropriate action in relation to the Covenant at the General Synod 2011.
APPENDIX B
THE CHURCH OF IRELAND RESPONSE TO THE RIDLEY CAMBRIDGE DRAFT OF THE ANGLICAN COVENANTHaving considered Section 4 of the Draft Anglican Covenant very carefully, and bearing in mind a full range of points of view, we believe that the text of Section 4 as it stands commends itself in the current circumstances. The term ‘Joint Standing Committee’ clearly needs to be updated following its re-styling at ACC-14. We appreciate the work of the former Covenant Design Group, not least in taking into account the Church of Ireland’s views, and encourage the Archbishop of Canterbury and his new group under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Dublin as they seek to conclude the work on the text of the Covenant.