Episcopal Church Focuses on California Bishop Voting

Episcopal Church Focuses on California Bishop Voting @ NY Times

By NEELA BANERJEE

SAN FRANCISCO, May 4 — The Episcopal Church's diocese of California will elect a new bishop on Saturday, the first such vote here in 27 years.

The election would normally play out as a decidedly local event, but many from the broader Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion to which it belongs are focused on it because three of the seven candidates are openly gay or lesbian ministers in long-term relationships.

Three years ago, when the Episcopal Church consecrated the Rev. V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, making him the first openly gay bishop in the church's history, it set off a bitter fight in the denomination about homosexuality that threatened to rend the church and the worldwide communion.

If the diocese of California elects a gay bishop, experts on the church said, the denomination could edge even closer to the point of fracture.

"It has enormous and possibly decisive consequences," said the Very Rev. Paul F. M. Zahl, dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa., and a leading conservative in the church. "You almost can't exaggerate the importance it would have if they elected a partnered gay person as a bishop."

The Rev. Ian T. Douglas, professor of world Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., said: "If, in fact, California elected an out gay and lesbian person living in a lifelong relationship, it would become in some measure a referendum on the Episcopal Church's place in the Anglican Communion."

Clergy members and lay delegates from congregations voting on Saturday, especially those from parishes that support full inclusion of gays and lesbians, said they planned to choose the best candidate, regardless of sexual orientation.

But one senior minister in the diocese, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic, said, "The average parishioner in the diocese of California is very aware that voting for a gay bishop would split apart the Anglican Communion at a time when dialogue has started."

The debate over homosexuality has become divisive for the Protestant mainline churches, and it has begun to emerge in Catholic and black Protestant denominations, too.

Last year, the United Methodist Church defrocked a lesbian minister in Pennsylvania. Last fall, the Vatican issued a letter prohibiting the ordination of men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies." This year, black gay activists and clergy members started a campaign to combat what they said was widespread homophobia in black churches.

The Episcopal Church is a small but rich and powerful member of the Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members, the second-largest church body in the world, and is presided over by the archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop Robinson's consecration drew a virulent response from primates of fast-growing Anglican provinces in the developing world, where homosexuality is taboo. Many in Africa, Asia and Latin America have curtailed their interaction with the American church. A few traditionalist congregations in this country have placed themselves under the oversight of foreign bishops.

To prevent a schism over homosexuality, a commission appointed by the archbishop of Canterbury asked the Episcopal Church in 2004 to place a moratorium on the election of gay bishops. More recently, a special commission of the Episcopal Church proposed that dioceses exercise "very considerable caution" before electing someone whose lifestyle "presents a challenge to the wider church," commonly interpreted to mean an openly gay or lesbian bishop.

Against this tense backdrop, the Right Rev. William E. Swing decided in late 2004 to retire this summer around his 70th birthday after serving for nearly a generation as the bishop of California, a diocese that includes 82 parishes in San Francisco, Oakland and five nearby counties.

A diocesan search committee identified five candidates, and they grew to seven when two local ministers petitioned to be included. The committee did not exclude qualified candidates because of sexual orientation.

The candidates are the Right Rev. Mark H. Andrus of the diocese of Alabama; the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe of the diocese of California; the Rev. Jane Gould of Lynn, Mass; the Rev. Bonnie Perry of Chicago; the Rev. Donald Schell of San Francisco; the Rev. Canon Eugene T. Sutton of Washington, D.C.; and the Very Rev. Robert V. Taylor of Seattle. Ms. Perry, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Barlowe are openly gay clergy members in long-term relationships.

Through a spokesman, the candidates declined to be interviewed.

Episcopalians here have responded to the search for a bishop with excitement and widespread involvement, even those parishioners who will not be voting.

About 2,000 people from a diocese of about 10,000 active members attended long meetings with the candidates as they traveled through the area two weeks ago, said the Rev. Rosa Lee Harden of Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in San Francisco. People asked the candidates about their commitment to social justice, evangelism, immigrant rights and inclusion not just of gays but of the many ethnic groups starting to fill the pews here, those who went to the meetings said. The candidates' sexual orientation was not an issue.

Still, many people asked how the new bishop would bring about reconciliation with parts of the church that are not as inclusive of gays, said the Rev. Anna Lange-Soto, vicar of El Buen Pastor in Redwood City. "It is an issue," Ms. Lange-Soto said, "but on the other hand, it isn't consuming us."

Sarah Lawton, a lay delegate from St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in San Francisco, said that other delegates and clergy she had spoken to were "serene" about the vote, confident that any of the candidates would make a good bishop.

But some lay delegates and clergy here have voiced frustration that Episcopalians outside their diocese have made sexual orientation, rather than a candidate's fitness for the job, the defining issue.

"I think we're tired of the hype that is being generated by a vocal minority in the church," said the Rev. Katherine M. Lehman of St. Bede's Episcopal Church in Menlo Park. She added, "If we are called to elect a qualified nominee who happens to be gay, we will do that based on our discernment of the process and the Holy Spirit."

Some of the frustration is aimed at liberal Episcopalians who say now may be too fragile a time to elect a gay man or a lesbian. The church's General Convention in June would have to confirm the new bishop, and people here are aware that if that the new bishop is gay, the convention may reject the choice, a rare occurrence in a denomination that places great trust in the decisions of its dioceses.

"My No. 1 directive as a bishop is the unity of church, because schism is a greater sin than heresy," said Bishop Kirk S. Smith of the diocese of Arizona, who backs full inclusion of gays in the church. "I think everyone will breathe a sigh of relief if it's not a gay candidate, and that's sad." Site feed @ http://www.oasiscalifornia.org/news/atom.xml