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Email: "13 ANGLICAN BISHOPS OPPOSE SAME-SEX BLESSINGS"

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BY LifeSiteNews.com VANCOUVER, June 19, 2002 (LSN.ca) - Thirteen Anglican bishops from British Columbia to Newfoundland expressed “regret” on Monday over the Diocese of New Westminster’s decision last weekend to provide official blessings to same-sex unions. The bishops said matters of moral teaching and Church order and discipline are beyond the jurisdiction of a single diocese acting alone.  “We regret the decision of the Diocese of New Westminster to move independently toward the blessing of same-sex unions,” the bishops said, saying that the move is in conflict with the “moral teaching of the Holy Scripture and the tradition of the universal Church.” They referred to a 1997 statement of the Canadian House of Bishops, which stopped short of blessing homosexual unions, as “a balanced position which allows for the widest possible pastoral latitude in ministry to gay and lesbian people.” They also cited the worldwide Anglican position agreed to at the 1998 Lambeth Conference that was an “overwhelming consensus” against recognizing homosexual unions. Representatives of Anglicanism’s large presence in Africa were strongly opposed.  But Terence Finlay, who as Archbishop of Toronto heads North America’s largest Anglican/Epicopalian diocese with 220 parishes and 90,000 congregants, said he “personally favours a local option to allow parishes to decide whether or not they choose to bless unions under certain conditions.” He says he supports blessing homosexual unions and dismisses “those who say this is such a core issue and it leads to separation.”  Archbishop Michael Peers, head of the Anglican Church of Canada, has told his international counterparts that the New Westminister diocese “acted responsibly” in providing a “conscience clause” for parishes that disagree with blessing same-sex unions.  To read National Post coverage see:  http://www.nationalpost.com/national/story.html?id={910EFCC2-5990-4A9F-9271-399FD2918AB1}  For previous LifeSite coverage of the recent blessing decision see: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/jun/02061704.html   For the 2001 Anglican catechism that said homosexual unions are “divinely ordered” see: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2001/jun/01061203.html For the 1998 worldwide Anglican meeting that called homosexuality “sinful” see: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/1998/aug/98080403.html http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/13-anglican-bishops-oppose-same-sex-blessings/

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