As Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish prepares for the Episcopal Church's annual convention next week, the leader of Utah's flock acknowledges that worldwide controversy surrounding the ordination of a gay bishop will grab the spotlight, but she says the focus should be on more pressing issues.
"This is not all the church is about, and in a sense, it's sensational stuff," she said from her Salt Lake City office. "My impatience is around the fact that we get kidnapped by sensation, by people who want to make a big noise. The world has got a hell of a lot more serious issues to address than this, like poverty, war, refugees, elderly people and children. In a sense it's hard for me to imagine" that delegates — and particularly the media — will spend so much time focusing on the debate.
Yet the issue of homosexuality's place in the faith — whether to formally bless same-sex unions and ordain openly gay clergy — has rocked the Episcopal Church for almost three decades, and comes to the fore at a time when the same angst is reflected in American politics and jurisprudence. More than 1,000 delegates expected to gather in Minneapolis July 30-Aug. 8 will consider whether to affirm the recent election of the church's first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, from a diocese in New Hampshire.
Formal church policy now prohibits such ordinations, as it does the formal church blessing of same-sex unions. Reaction to Robinson's election has been wide-ranging, with Bishop Irish and others expressing their support while several bishops have publicly condemned the move as incompatible with scripture and church doctrine.
Robinson's election must be approved by the convention's House of Deputies and the other Episcopal bishops, several of whom have already said they will vote against the move.
In a letter to bishops regarding the upcoming convention, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold says he hopes people will see a distinction "between the consent to the consecration of a bishop who is a priest in good standing partnered with a member of the same sex, and the continuing debate regarding formal actions by the church in the area of human sexuality."
Bishop Irish said she interprets that to mean there is a definite distinction between Robinson's election — which is an unusual event in itself — and embracing a formal liturgy that would give the church's blessing to same-sex unions. A formal proposal to craft the latter is being presented at the convention, but won't be voted on until 2006, she said.
She noted that a couple of dioceses now recognize people who share a domestic arrangement, "whether it includes a sexual relationship or not." She said those arrangements might include older heterosexual couples who don't marry because of taxes, young couples who live together, housemates, or gay and lesbian couples.
She is not opposed to a liturgy that would formally recognize and bless such relationships.
Her stance on the issue has not caused waves within the Diocese of Utah, she said. In fact, "because our culture here is so conservative, we've taken stands as a more progressive, liberal church. People who are attracted to our church come because it feels closer to what they want to be."
She hasn't had any congregation or person "threatening me" regarding her upcoming vote on Robinson's election. "It doesn't happen here, but it does happen in other dioceses. That doesn't mean everyone agrees. No Episcopalians agree on everything. I have to laugh on one level that we even expect that."
E-mail: carrie@desnews.com