TEC House of Bishop opens fall meeting with discussions of same-sex spouse exclusion from Lambeth 2020

Sep 18, 2019 by Jill

by David Paulsen, ENS:

The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops gathered here on Sept. 17 to begin a four-day meeting where the question of the Lambeth Conference 2020 loomed from the outset, both as a point of punctuation in Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s opening sermon and as the scheduled topic of discussion for the first afternoon.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, in calling all bishops in the Anglican Communion to attend the Lambeth Conference next summer, chose to invite gay and lesbian bishops but not their spouses, a plan he saw as a way to balance the divisions in the communion but one that drew criticism, including from within The Episcopal Church. By the time Lambeth starts on July 22, The Episcopal Church will have at least three bishops with same-sex spouses.

Curry alluded in his sermon to the variety of responses that Episcopal bishops are considering.

“We are going to Lambeth, but some of us can’t and some of us won’t. We’ll each have to make a decision of conscience, and that decision of conscience must be respected,” Curry said, adding that he will attend. “I’m going as a witness to the way of love that Jesus has taught me.”

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