The Most Rev. Alan Harper, Archbishop of Armagh and Church of Ireland Primate, has called the House of Bishops’ September 25 statement, following its meeting in New Orleans, “helpful and deserving of a generous response.”
“I hope that member churches of the Anglican Communion will now calmly and fairly reflect upon the New Orleans Statement and conclude that [the Episcopal Church’s] bishops have gone a considerable way to meeting the reasonable demands of their critics,” he said.
Harper commended the bishops’ almost-unanimous decision to reiterate B033 that said they would “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” The bishops also pledged not to authorize public rites for same-gender blessings “until a broader consensus emerges in the Communion, or until General Convention takes further action.”
Harper also noted the “generous agreement of Presiding Bishop [Katharine Jefferts Schori] to put in place a plan to appoint Episcopal visitors for dioceses that request alternative oversight.”
Read the whole Episcopal News Service story here.