Thursday, February 22, 2007

PASADENA RECTOR OBJECTS TO ANGLICAN PRIMATES OVER BLESSING THE UNIONS OF GAYS & LESBIANS

Press Release
For Immediate Release
Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Reverend Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Church Pasadena, will challenge the theology of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, who, in a communiqué delivered Sunday, ordered the U.S. Episcopal Church to refrain from creating rites to bless same-sex unions. "We have been blessing the unions of our gay and lesbian parishioners for 15 years and we have no intention of denying them blessings in the future," said Bacon.

He will express his objections in his sermons this Sunday, February 25. In making such a statement, Bacon puts himself at odds with his Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who endorsed "a season of fasting from authorizing rites for blessing same-sex unions." Bacon said, "As rector, I will reject all Episcopal invitations to "fast" from doing the justice work of embodying God's inclusive love. The fast to which Lent calls us is to foreswear acts of interpersonal and institutional bigotry and discrimination with which this communiqué is dripping."

Bacon will invite all present on Sunday to stand and hold hands in solidarity with one another, saying to the Church-at-large that All Saints will continue blessing same-gender unions in the future. Bacon will also encourage each worshiper to pray supportively for Bishop Jefferts Schori in her ministry of pastoral care, compassion, and justice for all. "There is already too much exceptionalism and exclusion in the history of Christianity without extending our institutional practice of making outcasts of our LGBT sisters and brothers. I believe that one day Anglican primates will gather somewhere for a corporate confession of this prejudicial act of February 19, 2007, just as the Anglican primates gathered last Sunday and confessed that slavery was an evil practice in which the Anglican church played a sinful role. In order for All Saints to exercise its role of leadership in the larger Church, to move us toward that day of repentance, we need the energy of every one of our members and friends at All Saints to help us transfigure the Church from within so that it can become what God has always envisioned."

All Saints Church is located at 132 N. Euclid Avenue, Pasadena, Ca. 91101.

For further information or to schedule interviews with clergy, please contact Director of Communications Keith Holeman at 626.583.2739

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