VATICAN CITY (CNS): The ordination of an openly gay bishop in the US Episcopal Church raises serious questions about the limits of legitimate diversity within the Church and highlights the need for structures to support unity, said a team of Anglican and Catholic scholars.
“Communion is simultaneously both a gift and a calling, it makes demands”, calling for respect for differences as well as caution in taking positions that could fracture unity, said the scholars in a report released late last month.
The report was given to Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and to president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper.
The two had asked the scholars to reflect on how the November 2003 ordination of the gay prelate, Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, and the ensuing threats to the unity of the Anglican Communion should be seen in light of joint Catholic-Anglican statements on the structure of the Church, on authority and ministry within the Church and on Christian morality.
The scholars raised serious questions about how Bishop Robinson could represent his local Church within the communion if many other bishops will not recognise his ordination, how he can be a sign of their unity with the rest of the Church and how the people of the diocese who elected him can claim to uphold Christian tradition and morals when the majority of the Church disagrees with them.
The scholars did not offer answers to the questions they raised or take a position on the ongoing debate among some Christian theologians and scholars regarding homosexuality and scriptural references to it.
They simply affirmed that the official teaching of both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion continues to be that homosexual activity is morally wrong.
