Canada: Bishops tight-lipped on Lambeth marriage text
By Sean Frankling, Anglican Journal:
Answers elude journalists asking about controversial early version.
Two bishops involved in preparing a controversial Lambeth Conference statement have declined to comment directly on how a line calling for the reaffirmation of a 1998 resolution endorsing marriage as the union between a man and a woman appeared in a version released before the conference.
Days before the July 27-Aug. 7 conference, bishops from across Canada and internationally released statements in protest of a draft of the call which did not match the version the call’s drafting group originally submitted. This new version contained a clause calling on the church to re-affirm Resolution I.10 from 1998’s Lambeth Conference, which states, among other things, that the conference of bishops “upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union” and “cannot advise the legitimizing or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions.”
Kevin Robertson, regional bishop of York-Scarborough in the diocese of Toronto and a member of the committee tasked with drafting the call, says the inclusion of this section was “disturbing” to him. While the drafting group had included a reference to the document as the historical position adopted by the Lambeth Conference, it had recommended no action for the conference to take on it, he says.
In the days between the release of the changed draft and the beginning of the conference, Robertson and the drafting group reconvened online to submit a new version, which became the call actually discussed at the Lambeth Conference. The new draft mentions I.10, acknowledging that many provinces within the Anglican Communion continue to disagree with same-sex marriage, but also referring to “a plurality of views” on sexuality. The drafting committee removed the recommendation to reaffirm Resolution I.10.
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