The Church of England has halted its plans to introduce ‘wedding’ services for same-sex couples after the bishops finally accepted long-resisted legal advice that it is not possible to do so without the approval of two-thirds of General Synod. Plans to allow clergy to enter a same-sex civil marriage have also been scrapped owing to the legal complications, ongoing divisions on the issue and the confusion that bringing in the reform by itself would sow. The Times has more.
Bishops will halt plans to allow gay couples to have dedicated blessing services in church and the ban on priests marrying same-sex partners will be extended.
The Times understands that, after years of deliberation, bishops have reached long-awaited decisions on two key unresolved problems involving gay rights in the Church of England.
They have decided not to grant special permission for a trial of dedicated blessing ceremonies for gay couples or for priests to be allowed to enter into same-sex civil marriages, insisting that any changes should require the lengthy rewriting of church law.
… Bishops will say the services should not be permitted even in trial form unless canon law is rewritten. This would, however, require a two-thirds majority in the three houses of the synod, deemed unlikely with its present make-up.
Worth reading in full.
This is a victory of sorts for conservatives in the church, who will be relieved that further divisive changes will not be rammed through at this point. The forced departure of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury last year over safeguarding failures – Welby being the main driving force behind trying to get this question ‘solved’ before he retired – was key in the momentum collapsing, combined with the retirement of a number of stalwart liberal bishops.
While relieved, though, conservatives will also be frustrated that the reasons for dropping the plans now – essentially the legal situation and the voting calculus in Synod – are no different from what they were eight years ago, before huge amounts of church money, time and emotional energy were expended in divisive ‘conversations’ at every level of church life. A number of bishops and others in senior leadership, led by Welby, had chosen to ignore this reality and attempt to find a way, any way, to push through the changes they wanted. The consequence is a church more divided than ever, with pain on both sides, local churches reeling from acrimonious splits and further demoralisation and disengagement in the pews.
Will the church now be able to move on from this lost decade of division? There are signs liberals were already resigned to this outcome, so it’s possible an uneasy truce will now settle, with liberals going back to quietly ignoring the rules in practice while refraining from making big noises about trying to change them.
Read it all at the Daily Sceptic