c. 2007 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Responding to demands from the worldwide Anglican Communion, the top bishop in the Episcopal Church on Tuesday (Feb. 21) called for a halt to blessing same-sex unions and consecrating openly gay and lesbian bishops.

But it is unclear whether Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori intends for the ban _ which she described as “a season of fasting” _ to be permanent.

Some conservatives say Jefferts Schori’s statement does not go far enough, noting that Anglican leaders did not merely ask for a temporary halt to the church’s pro-gay policies when they met last weekend (Feb. 15-19) in Tanzania.

“The Episcopal Church has turned playing with words into a high art form,” said the Rev. Kendall Harmon, a conservative leader in South Carolina. “We need to do exactly what we’ve been asked. … The Episcopal leadership is already starting to play games and weasel out of the implications of what’s been said.”

But Jim Naughton, spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, said Jefferts Schori is attempting to show church members that they can continue to advocate for the “full inclusion of all God’s children in the ministry of the Episcopal Church.”

In their statement on Monday, the Anglican bishops, or primates, asked the U.S. church not to “authorize” blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples, and to promise that openly gay bishops will not be allowed to serve.

In recent years, the Episcopalians have turned down requests to approve formal liturgies for blessing same-sex couples. Last summer, delegates rejected an outright moratorium on gay bishops but agreed to exercise “restraint” when considering gay candidates for bishop.

The primates asked for an answer by Sept. 30, and said if those promises cannot be made “in good conscience,” there could be “consequences” that would restrict the U.S. church’s role in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.

Some of the U.S. bishops who will help formulate that answer in two upcoming meetings have already rebuffed the primates’ demands, barely 48 hours after they were issued.

“Gay and lesbian people who come to the church seeking the blessing of the church for their unions are people seeking to lead holy lives, exactly like heterosexual couples,” San Francisco Bishop Mark Handley Andrus said. “The church must respond to gay and lesbian people seeking the blessing of counseling, community support, prayer, and sacrament in the same way it does to heterosexual couples.”

Andrus said the U.S. church would be “immeasurably impoverished” without the contributions of its gay and lesbian parishioners and clergy.

And in an online interview with Newsweek, New York Bishop Mark Sisk said Anglican leaders are seeking “an affirmation that we will never do this again. My own guess is that we would not respond positively to that request.”

Harmon said “this (situation) has put the Episcopal Church in a very challenging position. We’re in the penalty box and have been given a strong ultimatum with a very short time frame.”

During the fast, Jefferts Schori is asking that overseas Anglican leaders refrain from “transgressing traditional diocesan boundaries” and injecting themselves into the U.S. church on behalf of angry conservatives.

“While those who seek full inclusion for gay and lesbian Christians, and the equal valuing of their gifts for ministry, do so out of an undeniable passion for justice,” Jefferts Schori said, “others seek a fidelity to the tradition that cannot understand or countenance the violation of what that tradition says about sexual ethics.

“Each is being asked to forbear for a season.”

KRE/LF END BOYLE