Tag Archives: Bishop Mary Irwin-Gibson

Bishop of Montreal and same-sex marriage: today the diocese, tomorrow the world

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VOL has an interesting article on the machinations underway to promote same-sex marriage in the Diocese of Montreal.

The author confirms that, lurking beneath the thin veneer of diocesan civility and impartiality, is a concerted determination to ram same-sex marriage down the throats of clergy and parishioners whether they like it or not.

To summarise: clergy who don’t support same-sex marriage have no future in the diocese (or in the rest of the ACoC for that matter); loyalty to your bishop supersedes loyalty to Christ; Anglican diversity is a hoax; Anglican preoccupation with homosexuality has reached the point where the diocese openly proclaims Christianity to be “queer”; diocesan youth are being indoctrinated with this nonsense; the bishop has delusions of grandeur; the second synod vote in 2019 on changing the marriage canon is meaningless.

Have I missed anything? Oh yes: the Diocese of Montreal is leading a charge into the abyss, with the rest of the ACoC panting queerly at its heels.

Read it all here:

Diocese of Montreal Bishop wants “Whole World” on board with Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage is a hotly debated issue in the Anglican Church of Canada. Especially now that the General Synod voted in favour of it in 2016 with the narrowest of margins and the advocates of same-sex marriage are getting ready to finalize the change of the marriage canon when the General Synod convenes again next year. Only if the changes are approved a second time will the marriage canon be changed.

Needless to say, the intervening period is marked by intense politicking. Most of the politicking is done by the advocates, as is demonstrated by the pervasiveness of those efforts in the Diocese of Montreal.

It is the position of Bishop Mary Irwin-Gibson that she can’t wait “for the whole world to be on board with same-sex marriage” so she can and must act proactively. Her proactive approach is reflected on all levels. Of course, new priests to be ordained have to follow her lead on this because priests promise to be loyal to their bishops at the time of their ordination. Indeed, the Vicar-General of the said Diocese told me that opposition to same-sex marriage would be a “problem” with a view to ordination. He explained that, of course, the Diocese values diversity but implied that newly ordained priests cannot afford being diverse.

Bishop of Montreal will vote for same-sex marriage

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Bishop Mary Irwin-Gibson will vote in favour of same-sex marriage at the July General Synod. It’s hard to see how she could do otherwise since she has a number of clergy in her employ who are civilly married to other men.

The reasons she gives for her decision live up to the high standard of language-twisting set by other Anglican Church of Canada bishops. The church, she says:

“has the right and obligation to prayerfully consider new things and not simply to march in lockstep with society,” said Gibson. But, she added, “neither are we to remain stuck by interpretations of Biblical principles, which not everyone shares.

Except, of course, the new thing here requires precision marching in lockstep with society and to discard 2000 years of biblical understanding because not everyone agrees is to discard the entire bible since, well, not everyone agrees.

She continues by claiming the vote in favour makes her an ambassador[s] of reconciliation:

“If we are to be ambassadors of reconciliation, disciples of Christ, I see the potential in ministering grace and sacraments to more people and in calling all married couples to be models of Christian discipleship and hospitality.”

Except, the Anglican obsession with homosexuality has already shattered the Anglican communion so it can hardly be a reconciling influence.

She claims that:

We will not all agree but we are one body.

And:

it is possible to achieve unity in diversity

Except that we have not been one body since Gene Robinson was consecrated and the diocese of New Westminster began blessing same-sex couples. Even Justin Welby has had to admit that there is no unity.

It sounds as if the Diocese of Montreal has decided to perform same-sex marriages even if the vote fails:

Several dioceses are more than ready to go ahead and some don’t ever see that day coming. The chancellor of General Synod is being consulted and we will see what happens after General Synod concludes.

The Shared Episcopal Ministry has withered away, as, surely, the conscience clause allowing clergy to refuse to marry same-sex couples would, too:

The bishop also confirmed that since she assumed the episcopacy almost nine months ago a compromise arrangement known as Shared Episcopal Ministry, instituted by her predecessor, Bishop Barry Clarke, in 2011, to accommodate six clergy and several parishes who saw him as too favourable to same-sex marriage has been allowed to lapse.

Taken together, in context, Mary Irwin-Gibson’s charge to synod was, even allowing for the fact that she is an Anglican bishop, a masterpiece of prating twaddle.

The new Bishop of Montreal wants to make the church relevant

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Bishop Mary Irwin-Gibson is the new bishop of the Diocese of Montreal, a diocese whose membership has plummeted from 93,000 in 1960 to 11,000 in 2015.

How does she intend to make the diocese “relevant”? Well, she is going to carpet bomb the diocese with clichés. We have: “think outside the box” – a phrase I’ve heard used by witless business executives hundreds of times when they have run out of ideas – “build up their [the clergy’s] sense of engagement” and ….. wait for it, “make ministry viable and sustainable”. She does mention “sharing the Gospel”, which is odd since I’d have thought it too far inside the box to be worthy of attention. She is a liberal, so it is probably a gospel of the viable and sustainable rather than the real thing.

Needless to say, she has no “problem with same-sex marriage”.

From here:

Irwin-Gibson, 59, said there are no easy answers on how to ensure the viability of Anglicanism in Quebec but she is up for the challenge.

With fewer than 11,000 members in the Montreal diocese, down from about 93,000 in 1960, the denomination faces an uncertain future.

“Often we get stuck in the patterns of how we’ve been doing it,” said Irwin-Gibson, who replaces retiring bishop Barry Clarke.

[….]

Irwin-Gibson acknowledged the challenges are daunting but said she is ready to think outside the box to keep the Anglican Church relevant, even if the model of a traditional church and full-time priest in every parish is no longer possible.

“How do we do ministry in a meaningful way without the model of some old guy (who) lives in the house next door?” she asked.

“My goal is to encourage the clergy, to build up their sense of engagement, to … make ministry viable and sustainable for the next generation,” said Irwin-Gibson, whose last posting was Kingston, Ont., where she was the dean of St. George’s Cathedral for six years.