ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY BREAKS SILENCE ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

By Ivan H. Golden

Staff Writer

June 19, 2004

GREENWICH

In his first public comments on the same-sex marriage controversy that has divided the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expressed solidarity last night with the American Episcopal Church. But he stopped short of taking sides in the divisive issue.

“I’m well aware of the crossroads at which we stand,” Williams said to an audience of more than 400 people during a fund-raiser at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich.

Williams said he wanted to make two points about the controversy: First, he said, “the present difficulties would feel a lot more difficult were it not for the immense love and generosity shown to me by (the American Episcopal Church).”

Second, Williams said his experience on Sept. 11, 2001—when he was caught in lower Manhattan only blocks from the World Trade Center—had “made it difficult to feel estranged from the struggles of the Episcopal Church in the United States.”

The American Episcopal Church has been at odds for more than a year with many Anglican churches worldwide over the Episcopal Church’s support for same-sex unions and its vote to elect a gay man, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.

The archbishop of Canterbury, viewed as the worldwide leader of the Anglican Communion, had made no public mention of the controversy until last night, according to several bishops and pastors who attended last night’s $1,200-a-plate fund-raiser.

In a brief interview after his speech, Williams declined to talk more about the issue. “I don’t think I want to go into that,” he said.

Many pastors and bishops who attended the fund-raiser said they were relieved to hear Williams publicly acknowledge the controversy. And at least one, Canon Harold Lewis of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., said he wished Williams had gone further.

“Many of us, in fact, felt he should have said more,” Lewis said. “I think many of us in the Episcopal Church are feeling a little tenuous right now.”

But others said Williams’ comments struck the right note, particularly given his responsibilities as the worldwide leader of the Anglican Communion.

“I was very grateful that he did bring that up,” said the Rev. Jeffrey Walker of Christ Church in Greenwich. “But I’m also grateful that he didn’t spend the whole evening on that.”

Although the allusion to the same-sex marriage debate was the most surprising aspect of Williams’ remarks, the vast majority of the archbishop’s 45-minute speech concerned the role of the Anglican Communion and other religious and human-rights groups in the United Nations.

Last night’s fund-raiser was expected to raise $400,000 to $500,000 for the Anglican Communion Observer to the United Nations. The Anglican Observer, a nonvoting representative to the United Nations, lobbies U.N. members on behalf of Anglican issues and Anglican people worldwide. The position was created in 1985.

In his prepared remarks last night, Williams contrasted religious and nonprofit groups, which he said serve the interests of human rights, with U.N. member states, which often bow to political and national concerns before considering human rights, he said.

“There is an urgent need,” he said, “for a global, moral perspective.”

Andrew Smith, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, said Williams’ speech laid out “a clear vision of the role of religion in helping bring about world peace.”

END