Barring spouses of gay clergy from key Anglican summit causes ‘pain’ – msnNOW
© Geoff Pugh/The Telegraph The Most Rev Welby – Geoff Pugh/The Telegraph
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to bar the spouses of gay clergy from a global church summit was “very painful”, a fellow archbishop has said.
The Most Rev Justin Welby, who is the head of the Church of England and the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, will face a challenge when more than 650 Anglican bishops and archbishops arrive in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference on Tuesday.
Many of these clergy hold vastly different views on sexuality. The Lambeth Conference is a once-a-decade gathering and was supposed to be held in 2018 but differences over some of those issues on sexuality were so deep that it was delayed to 2020. The pandemic pushed the date back by a further two years.
Boycott from Rwanda, Nigeria and Uganda
Church leaders from Rwanda, Nigeria and Uganda, representing half the world’s Anglicans, are boycotting the conference in protest at moves by Anglican churches in the US, Scotland and Wales to conduct or bless same-sex unions.
On the other hand, the Most Rev Welby has also sparked controversy by banning gay bishops from bringing their spouses to the conference. Every Anglican bishop has been invited to the summit and they can all invite their spouses, with the exception of married gay bishops.
In an interview with The Telegraph, the Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Rev Dr Thabo Makgoba, has described the decision as “painful”.
The Most Rev Dr Makgoba, who takes a liberal stance and is open to discussions on the orthodox Anglican stance on homosexuality, said: “It is going to be very painful indeed.”
“My message to them is that all are welcome,” he added. “The church is at a stage at the moment in terms of our journey, where we don’t agree, and it is very painful. And our prayer is one day we will see eyeball to eyeball with each other, as created in the image of God. Not pink, not red, not green, not homosexual, not heterosexual. Because scripture is very clear that in Christ, there is no difference.”
Asked what he would say to those gay clergy who did not feel welcomed by the church, he added: “Yes, it pains me that they are not welcome now. But it’s a journey. It’s a journey that I hope one day all of us will realise where we’ve been on this journey.”
He added that it was not so long ago that the church did not allow women to be ordained and when they were, “it was only then that the Church of England realised that heaven didn’t fall”.
‘Bowing to homophobia’
Kevin Robertson, a gay bishop in Toronto, whose husband has been barred from attending the summit has previously accused the archbishop of bowing to homophobia.
The controversial decision has also prompted criticism from MPs and the Most Rev Michael Curry, the US bishop who preached at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and the University of Kent, the conference host.
The Archbishop of Cape Town is chair of the Lambeth Conference Design Group, overseeing an international team that has created the full conference programme, and has worked closely with the Archbishop of Canterbury and conference planning teams in this process over the past few years.
Ahead of the Lambeth Conference, which starts in Canterbury on Tuesday, the Most Rev Welby issued a message to bishops attending the event.
He said: “Without ignoring those things on which we deeply disagree, I pray that we will approach this gathering with an even deeper sense of what unites us: the love of Jesus Christ and his calling to serve God’s world.”
He has previously said of his decision to ban same-sex spouses: “I had to take what is a really difficult and painful decision to say, in order for the conference to be as representative as possible and get all the bishops there and not have the risk of some provinces not coming because they felt I was pushing the envelope too far, that I couldn’t ask all the spouses.”