Episcopalian plan stays consecrations

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The nation's Episcopal leaders, at the urging of the church's first openly homosexual bishop, have slapped a one-year moratorium on consecrating all bishops, saying such a refusal was preferable to discriminating against "our gay brothers and lesbian sisters."

The moratorium was proposed by New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson during a semiannual meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in Navasota, Texas, which ended yesterday.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, head of the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church, told the Associated Press yesterday church leaders approved the moratorium because they did not want "our gay brothers and lesbian sisters demeaned."

The Rev. Jan Nunley, spokeswoman for the denomination, said she was not aware of any homosexual candidates in the pipeline for the episcopate.

However, the majority of 140 bishops at the meeting "didn't want to single out any one group and say, 'We can't do that,'" she said.

"So we'll put a hold on it all."

Six dioceses will be affected by the decision, she added.

The moratorium will last until the next Episcopal General Convention, in June 2006 in Columbus, Ohio, where the church likely will revisit its policies on homosexual clergy and "blessings" of same-sex unions, the issues that threaten the U.S. church with expulsion from the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The moratorium was part of a larger document, "A Covenant Statement of the House of Bishops," which was passed by a "nearly unanimous" vote of the bishops, according to Episcopal News Service.

The statement also said bishops will not authorize any rites for same-sex "blessings" in churches nor bless such unions until General Convention. However, it left a loophole for priests to conduct such "blessings" on their own authority.