OUR Church of England formally apologized yesterday for his longstanding treatment of LGBTI people, although it has stated that same-sex couples are still not allowed to marry in its territory. The apologies of the bishops of the Church were set out in a report published after five years of debate about the position of the Church on sexuality. The report will be presented to the National Assembly of the Church, the General Synod, which meets in London next month.
“We want to apologize for the way the Church of England has treated LGBTI people, both those who pray in our churches and those who do not,” the bishops said in a statement. “We deeply regret the times we have rejected or excluded you and those you love. The occasions when you received a hostile and homophobic response in our churches are shameful, and we repent of it.”
“For the way we treated LGBTI people,” the statement said. “Sounds like a windbag,” wrote a community activist.
However, the Church of England’s position that marriage is limited to unions between one man and one woman will remain unchanged. Instead, he proposed that same-sex couples be offered the opportunity to have a church service with “a prayer of dedication, thanksgiving, and a request for God’s blessing” after entering into a civil marriage or registering a cohabitation agreement. Same-sex marriage has been legal in England and Wales since 2013, but the Church did not change its doctrine when the law changed.
Church leaders described the decision to hold church services as a significant change based on the life experiences of some faithful Christians. But deep divisions remain, with bishops acknowledging that some clergy will choose not to use the new prayers to bless unions of same-sex couples.
Jane Ozan, a well-known LGBTI activist in the church, expressed dismay at the bishops’ stance, arguing that God doesn’t discriminate — and “neither should we.” “We see one apology after another and it honestly seems empty,” Ozann wrote on Twitter. “Because if you apologize and then continue the abuse, it does the same thing as domestic abuse. The fact that the bishops don’t see this makes me angry.”
Source: Kathimerini
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