HARTFORD, April 13, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Six Episcopal priests were warned Sunday that their opposition to the ordination of the first openly homosexual bishop would mean their dismissal as pastors of their parishes, and eventually even to their being defrocked.
The six had “abandoned the communion of the church” by their opposition to their bishop, who supported the ordination of New Hampshire’s Bishop Gene Robinson, according to a letter from the bishop, Andrew D. Smith. The six have been vocal in their condemnation of Bishop Smith since Robinson’s ordination in 2003.
Rector of St. Paul’s Church in Darien, Rev. Christopher Leighton, one of the six priests who received the warning from Smith, called the imposition a “spiritual gag order,” according to a Boston Globe report. “The real story is our freedom to speak and our freedom to practice our faith is what is being inhibited,” he added.
Six retired bishops of the Episcopal Church USA condemned the actions of Bishop Smith in a statement in support of the six priests. “Is the bishop of Connecticut a ‘Kissing Judas?’” they wrote. “These bishops have kissed the Lord with their vows and betrayed Him for the silver currency of contemporary culture . . . They have acted in opposition to 4000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition and departed further from Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Classical Protestantism, as well as defiantly violated the expressed will and commitment of the world-wide Anglican Communion,” they said.
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