The Diocese of B.C.:
In 2010 I was asked by Synod to implement the blessing of same sex unions in the Diocese at
a time that I thought to be appropriate. I was asked to issue guidelines and a rite to be used.Attached below are the Guidelines for the Blessing of Same Sex Unions in the Diocese
of British Columbia. I am authorizing the blessing rite of the Diocese of New Westminster for
use in this Diocese, not a specific British Columbia rite.
As every other Canadian Anglican bishop who has authorised same-sex blessing rites, Bishop James Cowan is careful to call it a blessing rite, not a marriage.
Similarly, here, on page 2, the Diocese of Huron’s Keith Nethery bemoans the fact that journalists are unable to make the distinction between blessing a married homosexual couple and actually marrying them:
As an aside I can be all but 100 per cent certain that there isn’t a main stream reporter any where capable of understanding the difference between a Blessing and a Marriage – trust me I have tried to explain it to them.
Nethery doesn’t give journalists the credit they deserve for seeing through the mincing sophistry in which the Anglican Church Canada conceals its true motives, the better to befuddle the unwary. After all, homosexual marriage is legal in Canada and the ACoC clearly believes such “marriages” are a legitimate expression of marriage; if they didn’t, they could hardly bless them. So why doesn’t the Anglican Church of Canada stop the hypocritical harping on the fragile distinction between blessing something that has already been done and actually doing it?
Because that’s how pusillanimous Anglican clergy operate. When a rector wants to move a piano from one side of the church to the other, he moves it one inch per week; it takes a year to reach the other side but no-one notices.
Interesting…took James Cowan just less than 3 years to enact the will of his synod yet all he can come up with is a repetition of New West’s liturgy. Most important, at least for the few (2) remaining orthodox Priests, is this quotation from the authorization and guidelines text: “No member of the diocese, lay or ordained, shall be required to act against their conscience in the blessing of duly solemnized and registered civil marriages between same-sex couples,where one party is baptized. While I am unable to commit my successors in this matter, no ‘sunset clause’ is intended in this conscience clause.” The sun has already set and the conscience clause will invariably set soon as well.