EPISCOPAL BISHOPS MEET AMID TENSION OVER N.H. GAY BISHOP

By the Associated Press

3/18/2004

The Episcopal Church's bishops begin a closed-door meeting Friday in Texas, where they'll try to quiet the discord that has torn at the denomination since the consecration of an openly gay bishop New Hampshire's Gene Robinson. Robinson is attending his first meeting as part of a hierarchy in which 41% of bishops who head dioceses voted against his consecration and 28 of the bishops have refused to recognize him as a colleague.

Episcopal headquarters in New York City announced Wednesday that the gathering in Navasota, 60 miles northwest of Houston, is not a legislative meeting and no major policy decisions are expected. Rather, the schedule features speeches and discussions on "reconciliation" within the Episcopal Church and the international Anglican Communion of which it's a part.

The bishops will discuss the current flashpoint, how to handle conservative parishes that don't want to quit the Episcopal Church but cannot accept the authority of local bishops who favor gay clergy.

The proposed remedy is to provide dissenting parishes with special conservative bishops from outside their dioceses. At an emergency summit last October, world Anglicanism's top leaders urged the American church to grant dissenters "adequate provision for episcopal oversight."

The U.S. church leader, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, and his Council of Advice then proposed a plan allowing outside bishops to work with conservative parishes though only with approval from the local bishop as required by church law, allowing for appeals to regional bodies in case of disagreements.

Conservatives have rejected that. They don't want the local bishops to keep their veto power and claim liberals control the regional bodies that would hear appeals.

Griswold will present a rewritten plan at Navasota. Conservative leaders complain that they weren't consulted, and bishops weren't given the text to study in advance. Griswold repeated Monday that any plan must honor local bishops' powers under existing church law.

The leading conservative bishop is Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of a "network" formed in January to unite Episcopal dioceses and parishes that insist upon the traditional Christian teaching against same-sex relationships.

Duncan said some conservative bishops are boycotting the Navasota meeting, some will participate fully and some like himself will stay offsite and attend only sessions treating the church fracture.

Duncan said the church must "come to its senses" and help conservatives because "the present course is a suicidal course, or at least a fratricidal course."

Matters escalated last Sunday when five Episcopal bishops led a rebel confirmation service in Akron, Ohio congregations that spurned local Bishop J. Clark Grew II, a Robinson supporter.

Maurice Benitez, retired bishop of the Texas Diocese and spokesman for the five bishops, said if the hierarchy produces an "acceptable plan" for visiting bishops, "these kinds of measures may no longer be necessary." The implication: If not, there will be further violations.

Duncan said that if the Navasota meeting doesn't heed conservative appeals there will be "continuing chaos," not only Akron-type protests but congregations leaving the Episcopal Church.

Griswold's Council of Advice said the five bishops broke church law, since Grew did not approve the confirmations, and appealed for unity against forces that "seek to sow the seeds of division."

Grew said the Akron service might have been an attempt to "manipulate" the Navasota meeting while Griswold suggested the event was intended to "co-opt the bishops' agenda."