Gene Robinson, the American whose consecration as the first openly gay bishop bitterly divided the Anglican Church, is a defiant uninvited guest at the church’s 10-yearly meeting in Canterbury.
Despite being told in March that he would not be welcome at the Lambeth Conference, which brings together the world’s Anglican bishops and archbishops once a decade, Robinson is an outspoken presence on the sidelines of the two-week gathering at the University of Kent campus.
The meeting comes at a stormy time for the Anglican church and its 77 million followers amid moves by bishops from Africa, Australia and the US to form a breakaway group in protest at the consecration of gay bishops and women.
Robinson, the 61-year-old bishop of New Hampshire, insists he is not alone among the Anglican communion’s clergy in being gay, and says he has come to Britain — against the wishes of the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the world’s Anglicans — to lend them his support.
“There are many clergy in Britain who are living with their partners,” Robinson said in an interview.
“Many are out to their congregation and out to their bishop. But no one is willing to say it out loud. It’s not dishonesty but an unwillingness to be honest,” he said.
“I’m here because I would like to make it possible for those who would like to be open and honest to do so,” Robinson said.
Robinson has drawn the ire of more conservative Anglican bishops, some 250 of whom have boycotted the Lambeth Conference in protest at moves such as his consecration. About a quarter of the communion’s bishops, mostly from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda, are staying away in protest at what they believe is the church’s moral decline.
With a bodyguard in close attendance even as he spoke in a peaceful park, Robinson said he had grown used to dealing with threats to his life.
“I received a number of death threats before coming here,” he said. “That’s why I have security during the entire time I’m here. I had similar death threats at the time of my consecration.”
“I have no interest in being a martyr, I’m just trying to be a good bishop,” he said.
Robinson has cheated death before.
When he was born in Kentucky in 1947, the doctor who delivered him completed a birth as well as a death certificate, expecting that the newborn would not survive for long.
Robinson was ordained as a priest in 1973 and in 1987, he divorced his wife, after seeking advice from within the church on his attraction to men.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS