Bishops Discuss New Ecumenical Project, New Obstacle

By JERRY FILTEAU, CNS

Published: November 20, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNS)—The U.S. Catholic bishops heard and discussed two ecumenical reports Nov. 12—one on a promising new U.S. ecumenical project and the other on the new ecumenical obstacle posed by the consecration of an openly gay U.S. Episcopal bishop.

Archbishop Alexander J. Brunett of Seattle, Catholic co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, said the Nov. 2 ordination of Bishop V. Gene Robinson as head of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire has caused a serious rift within the worldwide Anglican Communion and poses a new obstacle to Catholic-Anglican unity.

Bishop Robinson has been living in an openly gay relationship for more than a decade.

Archbishop Brunett urged the Catholic bishops not to let that, or the recent decision of a Canadian Anglican diocese to develop a rite for blessing same-sex unions, “dim your interest” in ecumenical relations with the Episcopal Church or the wider Anglican Communion.

Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, updated the bishops on plans for a “new ecumenical organization in the United States” called Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A., or CCT.

It is to be structured “in a way that hopefully every Christian group can find a home,” including the U.S. Catholic Church, he said.

“We are very interested in this,” Bishop Blaire said, noting that Catholic representatives have participated in the planning process since the beginning three years ago.

He said the bishops may be asked next year to vote on whether to join.

Bishop Blaire noted that, while the Catholic Church is not a member of the National Council of Churches in the United States, in a number of other countries around the world the Catholic Church does have membership in such ecumenical bodies.

Unlike the NCC, the proposed shape of Christian Churches Together “would not be one of bureaucratic structure,” he said. He described it as more “a forum for us to come together.”

He said planners are envisioning a membership of U.S. Christian churches from “five families”: the historical Protestant churches, the evangelical and pentecostal churches, the Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the racially or ethnically based churches.

Asked how much membership would cost, he estimated that even though the Catholic Church would be the largest denomination in Christian Churches Together, it would cost only about $1,500 to $2,000.

“It’s meant to be a structured forum for interaction, and it’s going to begin with an emphasis on spirituality,” he said.

The NCC, which has 36 member communions representing some 50 million U.S. Christians, has been supportive of the development of Christian Churches Together and played a major role in initiating the planning for it.

Archbishop Brunett told the bishops that the election and ordination of Bishop Robinson and the Canadian diocese’s decision to move toward blessing same-sex unions went contrary to the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission’s 1993 agreed statement on moral issues, “Life in Christ,” and decisions of the Lambeth Conference in 1998.

The Lambeth Conference is a meeting every 10 years of the heads of the Anglican Communion’s autonomous provinces. At its 1998 meeting it affirmed the “Life in Christ” agreement, the archbishop said.

He quoted a paragraph of the agreed statement on human sexuality. It says in part, “It is in the covenanted relationship between husband and wife that the physical expression of sexuality finds its true fulfillment.”

He also quoted a passage from the document’s treatment of homosexuality, including the part that says: “Both (our communions) affirm that a faithful and lifelong marriage between a man and a woman provides the normative context for a fully sexual relationship. Both appeal to Scripture and the natural order as the sources of their teaching on this issue. Both reject, therefore, the claim, sometimes made, that homosexual relationships and married relationships are morally equivalent.”

He said homosexuality was one of the major issues at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which “voted in the majority that no one should be considered for priestly ordination or episcopal ordination who is living a homosexual lifestyle.”

Archbishop Brunett stressed, however, the commitment of the Catholic Church to remain in ecumenical dialogue with the Anglican Communion.

He said he was traveling to Rome later in November to discuss the recent developments with Vatican officials.

“It’s a very serious problem for us. If we’ve agreed on moral values and moral statements and now they’re not being observed, that’s a problem for us, and we need to deal with that, too,” he said.

On a positive note, he said the international commission, after six years of dialogue on belief in the Blessed Virgin Mary, appears to be near the point of completing an agreed statement on that topic and hopes to be able to finish it at its next meeting, this coming January in Seattle.