BISHOPS OFFER NEW PLAN TO GAY DISSENTERS

RICHARD N. OSTLING

Associated Press

Winding up three days of closed-door talks, the Episcopal Church’s bishops offered a new plan Tuesday for ministering to conservative congregations that feel bound to reject the leadership of bishops who support gay clergy.

The head of the denomination, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, said the decision shows the hierarchy’s commitment to reconcile the two sides. “We are coming to a new place of mutual discovery and trust,” he said.

But the plan, produced at a meeting in Navasota, Texas, may not prevent further problems in a denomination that has been in turmoil since the consecration of its first openly gay bishop last year. Conservative activists rejected a very similar proposal last November, and one cleric said that the new plan was “dead on arrival.”

Under normal Episcopal procedure, the local bishop controls all ministries in his diocese but can decide to invite visiting bishops to substitute in cases of special need.

In the current situation, congregations that cannot accept leadership by the resident bishop because of the denomination’s split over gay clerics are asking to be led by visiting, conservative bishops.

Five retired Episcopal bishops pressed the issue by performing confirmation rites near Akron, Ohio, this month without required approval by the local diocese. The bishops implied that further disobedience would occur if conservative congregations were not given what they want.

Tuesday’s plan for “Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight” calls on parishes that disagree with the local bishop over gay clergy to meet with him. If a deal for visiting bishops cannot be struck, an appeal can be filed with the president or vice president of the region, or province.

The provincial bishop might consult in turn with two other bishops representing different views before deciding what to recommend.

Last November, conservatives complained that the church’s liberal majority would have control of such regional appeals.

The visiting bishops would serve temporarily “for a stated period of time” and church leaders would regularly review the situation.

The whole issue ignited last August when the denomination approved New Hampshire’s election of an openly gay priest, V. Gene Robinson, as the local bishop. Robinson attended the Texas meetings this week.

At an emergency summit in October, the top leaders of the international Anglican Communion urged the Episcopal Church, the communion’s U.S. branch, to grant dissenters “adequate provision for episcopal oversight.”

The American church leader, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, and his Council of Advice then proposed the provisional plan that conservatives rejected.

Meanwhile, a “network” of conservative dioceses and parishes has been working on plans for ministering to member churches scattered throughout the country.

Canon Kendall Harmon, South Carolina’s delegate on the network steering committee, said the Navasota plan is “dead on arrival. It doesn’t even come close to recognizing the crisis we face.”

Harmon said the views of the conservative priests and parishioners “were never sought” before the Texas gathering. He said several bishops in the network left Navasota in discouragement before Tuesday’s final vote.

Bishop John Chane of the Washington, D.C., diocese, a Robinson supporter, said under the Navasota plan, dissenting congregations will continue “significant relationships” with their regular bishops, and that that was “as much as we bishops could do” without violating church law.

In another wrinkle, Jim Naughton, spokesman for the liberal Washington (D.C.) Diocese, sees the latest plan as also providing outside bishops to lead congregations that support the denomination’s policies but live under conservative bishops. A closed-door national caucus for such Episcopalians begins Thursday in Atlanta.