Pope’s South Sudan Trip Hits LGBT Minefield
by Jules Gomes, Church Militant:
Pope Francis’ visit to Africa has hit a diplomatic minefield due to the Anglican archbishop of South Sudan’s condemnation of same-sex blessings as constituting “unfaithfulness to the God who has spoken through His written word.
In an explosive statement targeting Abp. of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is traveling with Pope Francis to South Sudan, Abp. Justin Badi Arama threatened to break communion with the Church of England after it approved blessings for homosexual couples on Jan. 18.
Anglican bishops led by Welby were violating the “clear and canonical teaching of the Bible,” Badi warned on Tuesday, noting how the role of archbishop of Canterbury as a “moral leader and a figure of unity within the Communion” will be “severely jeopardized.”
The response of the English bishops “belies the loss of confidence by the bishops in the authority and clarity of the Bible as we have received it. They are re-writing God’s law for His creation; laws that are re-affirmed by Christ in the gospel accounts,” Badi Arama added.
The primate of South Sudan also blasted the bishops’ document on homosexuality as “a farcical compromise, with many contradictions, and no theological case made for blessing same sex unions.”
“Anglican ecclesiology requires that provinces don’t act independently of each other,” Badi said, warning that “a Synod vote in favor of the bishops’ proposals would be a major step in revisionism” and “inevitably lead” to a “re-configuration” of the Anglican Communion.
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