THE BISHOP'S CHARGE
128TH SESSION OF THE SYNOD OF
THE DIOCESE OF OTTAWA

Anglican Church of Canada
October 22 - 24, 2009 AD

"Let Justice Roll down Like Waters, and
Righteousness Like an Ever-flowing Stream"
(Amos 5:24)

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Faithful Stewards … New Directions

I am delighted to welcome you all to the 128th Session of our Diocesan Synod! It is a weighty responsibility that you carry. Synod is the most significant council of our Diocese, your voice is important, and your full participation is encouraged.

 Extracted from highlights of Bishop John Chapman's Charge Delivered October 22, 2009

Mindful of my understanding that:
Same-sex couples who are civilly married and seek the Church's blessing of their marriage must be welcomed with the same care and solicitude that the church would extend to any other of its members; and, that when the church blesses the marriage of anyone civilly married it does so recognizing that the couple is already married and that the blessing celebrates and deepens a reality that already exists;

I give my permission to the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Ottawa to begin offering a rite of blessing to those same-sex couples civilly married where at least one party is baptized, utilizing the rite of blessing for civil marriages found in the Book of Occasional Celebrations, published by the Anglican Church of Canada.

The preamble to the rite points out that the role of an ordained minister in a marriage service is to pray for God's blessing on the marriage, which the couple has ministered to each other.

I have not chosen to create an entirely new rite as has been offered by at least two dioceses in Canada. My intention is to embrace a liturgical process that will not discriminate between members of the Church on the basis of sexual orientation. This will be Ottawa's offering to the ongoing discernment that is happening throughout the Anglican Church of Canada.

It is my conviction that the process of discernment proposed here is fundamentally conservative and traditional. That is, the process of experiential discernment is witnessed clearly within Holy Scripture. A significant instance may be examined in Acts chapter fifteen. There the Church determines to do something, which, on the face of it, is against a plain reading of many other scriptural texts. The reinterpretation of these texts is held to be done under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to bring "new things out of old" as they are found in the new creation instituted by the death and rising of Jesus Christ. Such reinterpretation is witnessed to elsewhere in both Testaments and in the subsequent life of the Church.

Experiential discernment is something that is clearly provisional and ad hoc. While I believe we are working out the implications of the Gospel for our day and context, I acknowledge that now, we walk by faith and not by sight. None of the steps we take are irrevocable. In order to be true to the call to discernment, I acknowledge the need to maintain the fullest degree of communion with other Anglicans and full communion partners since the rest of the Church must evaluate what we may believe to be prophetic. No one has any guarantee to the possession of the fullness of truth. For us, to move deeper into all truth, we require the gifts, reproof, insight and experience of the whole Body.

Some may conclude that by offering limited provision for the use of the rite of blessing of civil marriage for same-sex couples, the Diocese of Ottawa is stepping beyond the limit of the Church's Canons. I believe that there is sufficient need for a new pastoral response to a situation that the current Canon could not have imagined. By submitting the process of discernment to reflection and critique in the hope of consensus building, I believe that we stand within the Canon Law tradition.

Guidelines for practice will be carefully articulated to the clergy of the diocese in a Pastoral Letter that will be sent to them later this fall.

I am very excited to tell you that the Diocese of Ottawa, in partnership with three other Canadian Dioceses, has been selected by the Archbishop of Canterbury to engage in a project that he is giving the highest priority. He has, with the assistance of other global Anglican leaders organized a pilot project that will enable a continuation of the ongoing dialogue (Indaba) between dioceses that are in disagreement on critical issues. Our particular project will be discussing human sexuality. We have been paired with the Diocese of Mombasa, Kenya. While we have already shared papers one with the other, in February 2010, at the invitation of Archbishop Williams, we will gather at St. Andrew's House in London to meet face-to-face sharing ideas and continuing the dialogue. This is a marvelous opportunity for us to continue dialogue on difficult issues with our Communion partners in other parts of the world. I will be making a full report to the Diocese in due course.


Regarding St. Alban's and St. George's, Ottawa
It is my conviction that it is our right to utilize these properties for the ministry of this diocese within the Anglican Church of Canada. The pace is slow but the Episcopal Office continues to work toward confirmation of our right of ownership. As many of you know, legal counsel has been retained to assist us in this task.