Nov 07, 2003  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

DURHAM, N.H. — The Episcopal Church made history on Sunday by consecrating the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, making him the church’s first openly gay bishop. Opponents of the move declared that most bishops in the 77-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion would not recognize Robinson as a colleague.

The Kenyan Anglican Church announced on Monday that it will officially sever ties with the Anglican Communion. Kenyan officials also will not participate in a newly formed commission comprised of liberal and conservative Anglican leaders who will examine the crisis over homosexuality in the church.

“He was called to be the bishop and no one can say or do anything about that,” said Jim Solheim, director of the Episcopal News Service. “Now the commission might say he can’t do confirmations or celebrate the Eucharist. They are kind of putting Gene in a category with the female bishops who may not preside over any ministerial actions.”

Opposition to Robinson’s consecration is being led by Archbishop Peter Akinola, the primate of Nigeria, who said that he and other primates will refuse to recognize Robinson’s ministry and bar him from operating as a bishop across most of the church.

About 20 conservative primates are also expected to cut ties with the 58 bishops who participated in Robinson’s consecration and others involved in his election.

Sydney’s Archbishop Peter Jensen told Reuters that the U.S. Episcopal Church had succumbed to the “pervasive culture of permissiveness.”

“Western culture is very individualistic, it’s greedy and it’s sexually permissive,” Jensen said. “The church sometimes buckles under this and I’m afraid it has in this particular case. The new bishop is not going to be a bishop in much of the world. He’s not going to be recognized. This is opposed to God’s word.”

While Robinson’s ceremony was celebrated by most of the crowd of 4,000 who attended the consecration, more than 400 Robinson critics gathered in a nearby church to condemn the ceremony.

Opponents call event ‘heresy’
The American Anglican Council, a group that resolutely opposed Robinson’s consecration called the ceremony, “a grievous day in the history of our church.”

“Heresy has been held up as holy,” the council said in a statement. “Blasphemy has been redefined as blessing. The arrogance of the leaders of the Diocese of New Hampshire and the Episcopal Church is nothing less than stunning.”

Solheim of the Episcopal News Service said that the statement was signed by 36 American and Canadian bishops but added that there were no signatories attached to the statement.

“It is really not clear how many have signed the statement,” Solheim said.

Shortly after the consecration, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams — the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion — noted that while those who consecrated Robinson “have acted in good faith” the “effects of this upon the ministry and witness of the overwhelming majority of Anglicans particularly in the non-western world have to be confronted with honesty.”

During the ceremony, Robinson said that his new position symbolized that the church was reaching out to “people who find themselves at the margins.” He also nodded to disappointed conservative members of the church by noting that “they must know if they leave, they will always be welcomed back.”

Consecration planners allotted 10 minutes during the ceremony for the opposition. Assistant Bishop David Bena of Albany, N.Y., said from prepared remarks that Robinson’s “chosen lifestyle is incompatible with Scripture and the teaching of this church.” He added that no bishop from the international church would acknowledge Robinson as a fellow bishop.

And the Rev. Earle Fox from the Pittsburgh Diocese also objected and used his time to cite specifics of same-sex behavior.

“If research statistics are correct, 100 percent of male homosexuals engage in oral sex,” Fox told the hushed assemblage. “Approximately 93 percent engage in anal sex, inserting the penis into the anus of the partner; 92 percent engage in ‘rimming,’ touching the anus of one’s partner with one’s tongue…” At that point, Fox was interrupted by Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, who was officiating the ceremony.

Had Griswold not intervened, it is likely that Fox would have continued with a litany of sexual acts he has used as evidence of homosexual perversion in other public debates. On those other occasions, Fox has said, in addition, that “47 percent engage in ‘fisting,’ inserting one’s fist into the anus of the partner; 29 percent engage in ‘golden showers,’ urinating on each other; 17 percent engage in ‘scat,’ the eating of feces or rubbing of feces on each other; and in ‘mud rolling,’ rolling on the ...