L.A. Visit Unsettles Archbishop

The Archbishop of Canterbury concluded a three-day visit Sunday to Los Angeles, leaving behind his blessings but carrying home the burdens of an American church divided by issues of human sexuality.

Throughout his visit, the Most Rev. George L. Carey--primate of the Church of England and spiritual leader of 2.5 million Episcopalians in the United States--cautioned the Episcopal Church not to rush to ordain non-celibate gays and lesbians.

“I have to say that is where I stand,” Carey told about 200 church members Saturday during a talk at Hillsides Home for Children in Pasadena.

But the archbishop seemed moved after a weekend of meetings with priests and laymen--some of them openly gay--first in Chicago and then in Los Angeles, and with Episcopal AIDS activists in Beverly Hills.

“I’m struggling,” Carey admitted to the Pasadena audience. “I don’t want to be heard as someone who rejects others. I want to be heard saying we have to live with the questions, and if we’re going to travel with the questions then I must also travel to listen to the experience of others--and it may be that I would have to change my mind--or others would have to change their mind.”

And later, in an interview with The Times, the archbishop noted, “Some of the homosexual priests are among the very best clergy, so there needs to be humility on both sides.”

Carey’s willingness to examine the issue comes at a time when virtually all U.S. Protestant denominations are wrestling with the emotional issue of homosexuals in the clergy.

But it is the Episcopal Church where debate is now focused. Last week, a panel of eight Episcopal bishops dismissed heresy charges against retired Bishop Walter C. Righter for ordaining a non-celibate gay man as a deacon in 1990. The court held that there is no core doctrine in the church prohibiting such ordinations.

At the same time, the court cautioned bishops not to proceed with further ordinations until the issue is settled by the whole church. Later this week, the 10 bishops who brought the charges against Righter are scheduled to hold a news conference in Dallas to announce whether they will appeal the dismissal of charges to a higher church court.

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A major confrontation over the issue is expected next year at the church’s General Convention, its highest policymaking body.

The Los Angeles diocese, like the rest of the church, is divided over the issue. Last January, Los Angeles Bishop Frederick H. Borsch approved the ordination of a non-celibate gay man in his diocese. The action was hailed by many but criticized by others, including the leadership of All Saints Episcopal Church in Long Beach, which published a newsletter disassociating itself from the ordination.

Among the 10,000 Episcopalians who came Sunday to hear Carey preach at the Los Angeles Convention Center, division among the faithful was apparent.

“The church should be open to anybody called by God to become a priest--male, female, straight or gay,” said Tim Blair, a parishioner at All Saints in Beverly Hills.

But Ted Stanton, a retired fireman from West Hills, said he might leave the church if it moved too quickly into ordaining gays and lesbians. Though he once disapproved of the ordination of women, later to change his position, he simply wants more time to think about gay priests.

“I probably won’t [leave], but I could,” he said. “I’m not going to say no or yes I will. But if it were to happen tomorrow, yes I would.”

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As the 103rd archbishop of Canterbury in a line of succession that began with St. Augustine in the year 597, Carey made clear that the Church of England still gives its priests only two choices: marriage or a celibate single life.

Yet he was noticeably touched by encounters with members of the Episcopal AIDS Commission, who met him at All Saints Church in Beverly Hills on Saturday morning.

There one prominent priest and author, the Rev. Malcolm Boyd, spoke of how he was gay and how his life partner has the virus that causes AIDS. Another member, Alan Lukes, said he also has the AIDS virus and works with teenagers to educate them to the dangers of AIDS and how to avoid contracting the deadly disease.

“Many of us are gay men and lesbians and we have lost many friends to the slaughter,” Boyd told Carey. “In many cases the church does not reach out with love, and sometimes even with hate. We need your help very much, your understanding and your prayers for us at a very difficult time.”

For the rest of the day, Carey wore a small Project New Hope lapel pin. Project New Hope is a nonprofit group sponsored by the Episcopal diocese that plans to build low-cost housing for people who are HIV-positive or have AIDS. It also runs a job retraining center.

“I was made more aware than ever of sometimes the damage we do when we reject people who actually belong to us. They are members of our family and we don’t want to send them out onto the street,” Carey said in Pasadena.

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He pursued that theme Sunday at a festival Eucharist at the Los Angeles Convention Center commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese.

“Every society, every community, and even churches are divided these days it seems,” he told Episcopalians from throughout Southern California attending the event.

“Questions about homosexuality or the ordination of women to the priesthood seem to be but two of the issues which separate people. We need to learn a new language, a language of love and tolerance,” he said. “I don’t mean by this that we have to agree or accept the political correctness.”

He exhorted his American audience to remain united until the questions are more fully “answered” by a consensus of the church. “What we mustn’t do is walk away from one another. We must love one another in our differences,” he said.

Such down-the-middle statements, however, did not satisfy church conservatives or leading supporters of gay ordinations such as the Rev. Edward Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. “This is a justice issue,” Bacon said, “and the way I hear that is let’s take our time in becoming just.”

But even Bacon was encouraged that the archbishop had recognized that this was an issue that, in Carey’s own words, “will not go away.”