Last Morning

The Tenth Legislative Day will begin in a couple of hours over in the Convention Center. Between now and then I'll need to have my cheerios and then pack and take my luggage down to the concierge desk. Hotel checkout at noon, and my guess is that it will be late afternoon at the earliest before President Anderson drops the gavel on this 76th General Convention.

The day ahead will have a couple of key items on the agenda. Most prominently, we Deputies will receive from the House of Bishops their Resolution C-056--which allows bishops to authorize same-sex blessings and, in states where civil marriage is allowed for same-sex couples, to exercise a "generous" pastoral response. This last phrase is left deliberately ambiguous, but probably will result in some places in permissions for clergy to lead same-sex marriage ceremonies. The resolution also asks the SCLM (Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music) to collect "resources" being used--probably in some anticipation of a move at the next General Convention to authorize formal liturgical texts, perhaps for inclusion in the Book of Occasional Services.

This action will, in any case, and in some ways even more definitively than the action earlier this week on D025, on ordinations, be a direct rejection of a moratorium requested of the Episcopal Church in the Windsor Report. For the past three years the Episcopal Church has addressed this moratorium by saying that while the blessing of same-sex unions might be happening as pastoral acts of ministry, there was no formal authorization of them by General Convention. With C056 that argument will be behind us.


I'll take a deep breath and guess that the Deputies will approve the C-056 in a vote by orders, probably divided more or less 70% in favor, 30% opposed, which would be about the pattern of the House was in action on D-025 the other day. It may be slightly different, though, as our action in only narrowly approving the resolution yesterday on opposition to "Defense of Marriage" statutes might indicate that there are some deputies and deputations who are distinguishing between issues of inclusion related to ordination and those related to marriage. We'll just have to see how the numbers line up, but it will be interesting.

The second thing that will be of interest will be the return to the House of Deputies of the Resolution passed the other day that added transgendered persons to the list of protected classes in the anti-discrimination clause of the ordination canon. What the House of Bishops did was simply remove the long list of protected classes and replace it with the phrase, "all baptized persons." The essential meaning is of course the same, but I note the committee recommendation is "not concur." If we don't concur, then the original Resolution fails and the wording of the language of the canon will return to its previous, present state (with the list of protected classes, less transgendered persons).

Yesterday's morning and early afternoon sessions were devoted to a long debate over the triennium budget, which shows huge shortfalls of projected income and requires massive cuts in program and personnel. The Presiding Bishop in the Joint Session called it a "heart attack," and it may be a more accurate reflection of the actual State of the Church at the moment than some of the issues we have spent most of our time and energy on through the rest of the Convention. Although there are plenty of stories of flourishing parishes and dioceses (as, for example, I think I can speak very positively about our life at St. Andrew's in Pittsburgh), the aggregate numbers show not "decline" but something, across the wider Church, more like "implosion." Someone said, "If present trends continue, there will be no Episcopal Church by 2040." That's of course a rhetorical leap. But it is more true than many want to believe. The spirit around this General Convention is that the Episcopal Church is entering a new era, becoming something new. That may indeed be true. But the question we will leave with will be whether this new Church is a Church that people in the real world will find to be a place in which to live out their lives and ministries as Christians. On that topic I think the jury is still pretty much out . . . .

Bruce Robison