AN uncompromising document released this week reinforces the ban
on public forms of blessing for those in same-sex relationships. It
states that, although the introduction of same-sex marriage will
not make heterosexual marriage "disappear", it may make "the path
to fulfilment, in marriage and in other relationships, more
difficult to find".
The report, Men and Women in Marriage, was published on
Wednesday by the C of E's Faith and Order Commission, with the
agreement of the House of Bishops. It includes a foreword from the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York which commends it "for study".
It was shown to journalists at Church House on Tuesday morning,
where the Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth, who chairs
the Commission and who wrote the report, answered questions about
its contents.
The report seeks to set the disagreements between the Government
and the Church of England over same-sex marriage, which it mentions
only twice, "against a more positive background of how Christians
have understood and valued marriage". It quotes the Common
Worship marriage service: "Marriage is a gift from God in
creation."
Dr Cocksworth admitted that the document was "saying nothing
new", and described it as seeking to "celebrate all that is good
about marriage in its ability to bring together biological
difference and the generative power of marriage to bring forth
life. It also recognises that there are forms of human
relationships which fall short of marriage in the form the God has
given us." He hoped that it would "help people to think and to
explore . . . the refinement of this human instinct for marriage
between people of the opposite sex.
"This document shows the deep and very beautiful Christian
refinement of that gift, but [it is] saying that, if we move from
refinement to redefinition . . . we might disrupt the environment
for human life that we have been given, just as we can do with any
other ecosystem."
The report does not affirm those in "human relationships which
fall short of marriage relationships", in contrast to the response
to the Government's consultation on same-sex marriage, published
last year, which stated that "same-sex relationships often embody
genuine mutuality and fidelity" (News, 15 June). Its language is
more guarded, stating that "In pastoral responses, a degree of
flexibility may be called for in finding ways to express the
Church's teaching practically. . . The Church does not treat
questions of what is possible in hard circumstances or exceptional
circumstances as simply closed."
Listed as responses to "hard circumstances" are the provision
for marriage after divorce, and an initiative by African Churches
to "help baptismal candidates who were in polygamous family units
to fulfil their responsibilities without compromising the norm of
monogamy".
Civil partnerships, it says, "raise analogous issues". It
highlights the pastoral statement issued by the House of Bishops in
2005, which suggests that clergy approached by people asking for
prayer in relation to entering a civil partnership "respond
pastorally and sensitively in the light of the circumstances of
each case, having regard to the teaching of the Church on sexual
morality, celibacy, and the positive value of committed friendships
in the Christian tradition". This 2005 statement also makes it
clear that: "Clergy of the Church of England should not provide
services of blessing for those who register a civil
partnership."
The Church, the new report suggests, can "devise accommodations
for specific conditions, bearing witness in special ways to the
abiding norm". On Tuesday, Dr Cocksworth said: "The Church is here
for all people, and those who find themselves in same-sex
relationships and have committed to those, the Church treats those
people with respect, with compassionate attention, with care and
with prayer. The exact form of that prayer will depend on the case
itself, the situation that is before the pastor."
The document itself does not restate the ban on blessing
same-sex relationships, but Dr Cocksworth said that the
"well-designed accommodations" it mentions were "different from
formal public blessings". The press release accompanying the report
states: "The document is clear that public forms of blessing belong
to marriage alone."
Last year, more than 100 clerics in the diocese of London wrote
to their representatives on General Synod to ask for the right to
choose whether or not to officiate at civil-partnership ceremonies
in church (News, 3 February
2012).
Men and Women in Marriage: extracts from the
report
Human relations depend on the encounter of men and women,
equally and differently human, offering each other social
fulfilment and placing their endowments of emotion and perception
at each other's service.
Biological differences do not simply cease to matter at the
level of personal relationship; persons are not asexual, but are
either male or female. Their sex attains a personal meaning, as
relationships are built constructively on the endowments and
strengths it offers. The relationship of marriage is more personal,
not less, as the partners come to it in receptiveness of what only
the opposite sex can bring to their own.
Neither the state nor the Church can claim a prior right over
marriage, nor does either of them "make" marriages, which is done
by God's providence working through the public promises of the
couples themselves.
In affirming its belief in marriage as the form the Creator has
given us for intimate and permanent relationship of a man and a
woman, the Church does not treat questions of what is possible in
hard circumstances or exceptional conditions as simply closed. They
require pastoral wisdom.
Well-designed accommodations proclaim the form of life given by
God's creative goodness and bring those in difficult positions into
closer approximation to it. They mark the point where teaching and
pastoral care coincide.
The reality of marriage between one man and one woman will not
disappear as the result of any legislative change, for God has
given this gift, and it will remain part of our created human
endowment. But the disciplines of living in it may become more
difficult to acquire, and the path to fulfilment, in marriage and
in other relationships, more difficult to find.