LONDON – The worldwide Anglican Communion may have to accept a “two-track” system in which churches can hold different opinions about gay clergy and same-sex unions, the Archbishop of Canterbury said Monday in a bid to keep the church unified.
LONDON – The worldwide Anglican Communion may have to accept a “two-track” system in which churches can hold different opinions about gay clergy and same-sex unions, the Archbishop of Canterbury said Monday in a bid to keep the church unified.
Rowan Williams outlined his thoughts on the future of the deeply divided church body on his Web site in response to the recently completed General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the communion’s U.S. branch.
At the meeting, Episcopalians authorized bishops to bless samesex unions and research an official prayer for the ceremonies. The church also voted to effectively drop a pledge that it would act with “restraint” when considering any more openly gay candidates for bishop.
The moves dismayed more traditional Anglicans, and Williams, the communion’s spiritual leader, is now trying to keep the communion unified.
He wrote that “a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole” but suggested there may have to be a “two-track” model where the church allowed different viewpoints on certain issues. He said there could be “two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude cooperation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion.”
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