The Jenkins resolution

From this morning’s New Orleans Times-Picayune

[Bishop Charles] Jenkins said he and 10 co-signers will offer a resolution that tracks the overseas primates’ wishes: banning same-sex rites, ending ordination of gay bishops, and establishing some kind of alternative Episcopal leadership for conservative congregations.

But he said his highest priority is to hold the communion together even with its divisions.

“The most devastating thing, and the thing I do not want to see happen, is that there becomes two Anglican communions in North America,” he said. “It is a sickness unto death. If we claim to be a catholic body, this is a temptation to which we cannot give in.

“On a more pragmatic level, those who will be hurt the most by this are the poor,” he said. “We are involved heavily around the world in ministries of relief and development. And I don’t think we have the luxury of giving in to our self-absorption on this issue, and taking that energy and those resources away from the poor.”

He said he and other bishops have informally discussed new forms of keeping conservatives and liberals inside the church.

He said two models might take off on slight measures of diversity in Roman Catholicism: one in which religious orders with their own governance run certain Catholic parishes, and another in which Eastern-rite Catholics conduct their own forms of worship and governance while remaining in full communion with Rome.

And there’s also this:

Bishop Charles Jenkins of the Diocese of Louisiana asked each to bring a gift of $10,000 to be divided between Louisiana and Mississippi.

Many will, he said Tuesday — and [Bishop-elect] Mark Lawrence of South Carolina has pledged to arrive with a gift of $100,000, Jenkins said.

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