Wednesday April 2, 2003
HOMOSEXUAL-BLESSING ANGLICAN BISHOP THREATENS PRO-FAMILY PARISHES WITH DISCIPLINE
VANCOUVER, April 2, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Michael Ingham, the Anglican Bishop of New Westminster diocese who has caused a near-schism in the Anglican church in Canada by insisting on performing blessings of homosexual unions in churches, has threatened those parishes which remain pro-family with 'discipline'. Ingham has issued a strongly-worded letter to eleven of the Diocese's clergy - who minister to 23% of the diocese's attending population - asking them whether or not they affirm their obedience to him and reject the March 23 resolutions of their vestries accepting an offer of episcopal oversight from Yukon Bishop Terry Buckle.
Bishop Buckle made the offer in a March 19 letter to parishes opposed to New Westminster's decision in June 2002 to bless unions between same-sex couples.
"Failure to respond will be taken as agreement with the Vestry's resolution. Repudiation of the Oaths and Subscriptions by any priest or deacon in the Diocese of New Westminster will leave me no alternative but to act under General Synod Canon 18 (on Discipline)," the bishop stated in his letter, sent March 24. The deadline for a response was March 31. Disciplinary action under the canon includes the possibility of withdrawal of licenses to minister in the diocese.
In a response, issued yesterday by the 11 clergy who received the letter, as well as six other ministers from their parishes, it is claimed that Bishop Ingham has no authority to issue a rite for blessing same-sex unions.
See the response letter by the 11 clergy to the Bishop's threat:
http://www.acinw.org/articles/ClergyReplytoMI.html
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