BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now the Episcopal Church divisions over homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture. This week the U.S. Episcopal bishops went as far as they said they could to comply with the demand from the worldwide Anglican Communion that the U.S. church clarify its policies on gay issues. The bishops said they would “exercise restraint” on consecrating gay bishops and would not officially authorize same-sex blessings. Conservatives around the world say the bishops did not do enough. So the question remains: can the church avoid schism? Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: The Episcopal bishops gathered in New Orleans amid intense pressure from inside their own church and from their fellow members of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Top Anglican leaders had given the U.S. church until September 30 to state clearly that they will not consecrate any more gay bishops or authorize any sex-same blessings. Failure to do that, the leaders said, would have unspecified consequences for the Episcopal Church’s place in the Communion. Episcopal leaders said they answered those concerns, even if their document did not go as far as many Communion leaders had sought.

Bishop TOM SHAW (Diocese of Boston, at news conference): This document that we passed this afternoon shows how important inclusion in the Anglican Communion is for all parts of the Episcopal Church and how much we deeply respect the Anglican Communion.

LAWTON: But many conservatives say the response was inadequate. Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan didn’t stay at the New Orleans meeting for the final vote.

Bishop ROBERT DUNCAN (Diocese of Pittsburgh): It’s not enough for the dioceses like my own that really don’t see a way to go forward within the Episcopal Church.

LAWTON: One of the strongest international critics, Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, said the U.S. bishops fell far short of what he was looking for. Akinola spoke at a conservative church gathering near Chicago this week. He was greeted by protesters who accused him of being anti-gay.

Anglican leaders from Africa, Asia and South America, the so-called Global South, have been building alliances with American conservatives who share their theological perspective. Overseas churches have consecrated several Americans as bishops who will work in the U.S.

Bishop JOHN GUERNSEY (Anglican Church of Uganda): I receive the authority given to me to oversee and care for the clergy and congregations of the Church of Uganda in the United States of America.

LAWTON: In New Orleans, the Episcopal bishops urged an immediate end to what they called these “foreign incursions.”

The bishops acknowledged their document doesn’t set any new policy. It’s not an outright ban on future gay bishops, but rather a promise to exercise restraint in consecrating any bishop whose “manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church.” Likewise, while the bishops promised as a body not to authorize public rites for blessing same sex unions, there is leeway for individual bishops to allow blessings in their dioceses.

Bishop KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI (Presiding Bishop, U.S. Episcopal Church, at news conference): Not everyone was 100 percent happy with every word in this document, as you might imagine. But together we believe that we have found a place that all of us can stand together.

LAWTON: Many bishops argued that the international leaders do not have the authority to determine positions for the U.S. church, which is self-governing.

Bishop PETER LEE (Diocese of Virginia): The Anglican Communion is not a juridical group where there is a clear method of kicking someone out, to put it bluntly. So if we are — if our relationship is stressed with the rest of the Communion to the breaking point, the break will come from others, not from us.

LAWTON: New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the church’s first openly gay bishop, says he believes the New Orleans meeting will ease the tensions plaguing the Church.

Bishop GENE ROBINSON (Diocese of New Hampshire): The prediction was that this would be like Katrina II, you know, some horrible storm that would tear the Episcopal Church apart, and what actually happened was that the vast majority of the bishops of all persuasions came together for this common statement. And it’s really, really a miracle.

It’s unclear whether the bishops’ statement will be enough to satisfy other members of the Anglican Communion. The Communion’s spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, was traveling and did not have an immediate comment. He had been in New Orleans for nearly two days of closed-door meeting with the bishops, but left before they issued their statement.

Bishop LEE: I think it gave us an opportunity to let him see more of who we are as bishops, in a very different context than where he usually works, and it gave us an opportunity to hear some of his concerns from his perspective looking at the whole worldwide Communion.

LAWTON: Robinson acknowledged he had some frank exchanges with the archbishop.

Bishop ROBINSON: I understood him to be saying that we had to choose between fidelity to our gay and lesbian members and fidelity to the process of what he called “common discernment.” And I said that, as a gay man, choosing a process over human beings felt dehumanizing to me. And perhaps there were people who were shocked that I said that, but after all, I’m the only openly gay voice in that room.

LAWTON: The New Orleans meeting seemed to solidify the decisions of those already contemplating leaving the Episcopal Church. New Mexico Bishop Jeffrey Steenson announced he was resigning in order to become a Roman Catholic.

Bishop JEFFREY STEENSON (Diocese of the Rio Grande): There are a lot of doctrinal matters that are being debated in the Episcopal Church that just astonish me, and I felt that it was really important for me now to be clear with myself about where I could be comfortable.

LAWTON: Four of the 110 U.S. dioceses have begun steps to break with the Episcopal Church. Conservative American bishops, including some who left the Episcopal Church decades ago, met together in Pittsburgh this week to discuss ways they can work together. Many are aligning with Global South Anglican churches.

Bishop DUNCAN: From the beginning, the message to me and to other leaders from the archbishops around the world has been get it together, find a way to work together, agree on a leader, agree on the way you’re going to work together and declare it. Move forward and we’ll go forward with you.

LAWTON: Meanwhile, Episcopal Church leaders spent a day of their meeting doing service projects around the Gulf Coast. They said they wanted to put the controversies aside and focus more on ministry and mission. And on this point, the conservatives agreed.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton is in Pittsburgh where the conservatives were meeting. Kim, most of the Episcopal bishops took a position of this week that many of the conservatives didn’t like. Some of the conservatives are leaving the church, they say. What’s changed? What’s new?

LAWTON: Well, in fact no new policy was set at this meeting. The U.S. Episcopal bishops restated the situation that’s been in play in their church for the last couple of years. They may have said it a little more clearly, which is what I think a lot of people in the Anglican Communion were looking for, but they have not set any new policy. For the conservatives I think, though, this was a line in the sand. This was a moment they were looking for, and it seems like it’s a point of no return for them, and so it seems to have solidified a lot of the decisions that many people were considering anyway.

ABERNETHY: So what are the possibilities now?

LAWTON: Well, the conservatives that met here in Pittsburgh this week are trying to put together what they’re calling a federation of all of these groups that have left the Episcopal Church over the years. And they’re trying to see if they can put aside all their many differences and have a united alternative Anglican body here in the United States that might in some ways rival the U.S. Episcopal Church, that they can present to the worldwide Anglican Communion as here’s a viable form of Anglicanism in the United States. They have a plan of planting up to1000 churches over the next year, and they really want to move forward with that plan, and they’re getting support from many of these conservative archbishops in the Global South.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton, many thanks.

Q: How would you describe the statement of the bishops who met in New Orleans?

A: I think it’s a miracle when you look at what a broad piece of common ground we are standing on with this document. Then you look at the bishops who are in the room, all but one of whom, a very liberal bishop, voted for it. And it was the full range of liberal to conservative, all kinds of different faith and practice. That we could craft such a broad piece of ground to stand on, I think it’s a really wonderful thing. I think the prediction was that this would be like Katrina II. You know, some horrible storm that would tear the Episcopal Church apart. And what actually happened was that the vast majority of the bishops of all persuasions came together for this common statement. It’s really, really a miracle.

Q: Where does it leave gay and lesbian members of the church?

A: I think it leaves us pretty much where we were. That is to say we’re somewhere between being totally excluded, this was the case in the past, and we’re not quite towards full inclusion yet. The Episcopal Church has made enormous progress here, and yet we are a part of a broader Anglican Communion. And although we would like it all to have happened yesterday, that’s not the way the church works. I would say it’s not the way any group works. We are undergoing vast change at a pretty good pace. Would I have liked to have gone further faster? Absolutely, but there are also people who would have liked it to go much slower, and that’s what being a church is about. It’s about finding that middle ground, something that we can all live with for this moment. Then we see where the future takes us.

Q: Where does it leave the diocese of Chicago if Tracey Lind, an openly lesbian priest, is elected bishop?

A: We have a resolution of the General Convention that says we should exercise restraint, and we don’t really know where that will take us, and we won’t know until there is another bishop-elect who is gay or lesbian, and then we’ll see how that happens. I think we’re all exercising restraint in a sense that we know this is an important issue. We know it’s a controversial issue, and only time will tell how that will go either with bishops or with standing committees. And remember in our church it’s not just bishops who decide, but clergy and laity as well as the bishop.

Q: What did you learn at this meeting about the feelings of the rest of the world?

A: I think the international visitors underscored for me what we’ve known, but hearing it coming from their lips is even more powerful. Their contexts are so different from ours. It should not surprise us, but perhaps we’re naive when we forget that in many countries of the world if you’re known to be gay you can be imprisoned. There’s just rampant discrimination. In a context like that, to ever have a chance to sit in the room with a faithful, committed Christian person who also happens to be gay or lesbian — it’s just not something that happens. So to hear from their lips how their contexts are different from ours, I think it always helps to have that personal contact. It was just as important for them to experience how very different our context is. So I think there was learning on both sides. That’s really why we treasure the Anglican Communion so much is that if we hold together there is so much to be learned from one another.

Q: We understand there were some pretty frank exchanges. What did you say to the Archbishop of Canterbury?

A: I was frank with the Archbishop of Canterbury, at his invitation. I began my remarks to him by saying, “Your grace, you know that I respect you and your office. I always have. I always will. But some of what you had to say to us was disturbing.” And I understood him to be saying that we had to choose between fidelity to our gay and lesbian members and fidelity to the process of what he called “common discernment.” I said that as a gay man choosing a process over human beings felt dehumanizing to me. Perhaps there were people who were shocked that I said that, but after all I am the only openly gay voice in that room. I did feel that way. I know that other gay and lesbian people, had they been in the room, felt that way. I owed it to him out of my respect for him and his office to say to him what he came to hear, which was our responses to him. So he invited us to respond. I was not the only one who responded, nor was I the only one who responded in a frank manner.

Q: What about your attendance next year at the Lambeth Conference?

A: Actually, the thing I most hoped for happened during this week related to my participation in Lambeth, which is that it would be taken out of being a solitary decision between the Archbishop of Canterbury and me of New Hampshire. It would actually be owned by the House of Bishops. Part of the response that we made was to say that this whole house hopes for the full participation of the bishop of New Hampshire. I’m very pleased by that. There was hardly any debate over that at all, that the people of the House see my inclusion in Lambeth. That’s a really important thing for the American church.

Q: Several of the most conservative bishops weren’t here for that part of the meeting.

A: It’s important to remember that the bishops who left right after the archbishop left have not attended our meetings in years, have not lodged with us, eaten with us, or worshiped with us. So this was nothing new. The only thing new was that they actually showed up. They had announced very early on that they were not staying. That grieves me, but I cannot make someone stay at the table. I think the important thing here is that the vast majority, liberal to conservative, all stayed. We hung in there with each other. We spoke our minds. We disagreed about things. Then we found a place that we could stand together. That’s amazing.

Q: What message do you hope this sends to the wider world?

A: What I hope it says to the American church and the Anglican Communion is that we dearly love each other and we dearly love this church. Although there are many things we disagree about we intend to hang together. We treasure our partners in the Anglican Communion. We hope they treasure us. If we just keep holding on to one another while we fight some of these things out, it’s going to be okay. So the result I’m hoping for is a kind of lowering of the anxiety and discomfort, just to say it’s in Christ that we find out unity, not in our agreement. If we just hang in there with one another long enough, the spirit of God will hold us together.

I think the message for gay and lesbian Episcopalians is that the Episcopal Church is not going back; that our movement towards greater and greater inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life and leadership of our church is continuing forward. It may not be going as fast as we would like, but its there. It is heartfelt. Even, it’s interesting, even some of the conservatives today in our closed session said we know where this is going. We know how this is going to turn out. Even they see it. I think they are just arguing pastorally that it needs to be at a pace that their people can absorb. So I don’t think there’s been any change in where we’re going. We’re only talking about how long it takes us to get there.

Q: And finally your thoughts on the involvement of foreign bishops in some U.S. dioceses?

One of the great surprises, to me, of this meeting was to hear of the sheer number of dioceses that have had incursions by bishops from foreign jurisdictions — archbishops, bishops, clergy coming from other international churches really with the purpose of undermining the Episcopal Church. I knew it was happening. I read about it like everyone else does. I am blessed not to have that happening in my diocese. But I was stunned at the number of dioceses in which this is happening. I don’t think the members of the Anglican Communion realize what an assault on our church this is. No one seems to be remembering that the Windsor Report, which everyone thinks called only us to task, actually called for that kind of incursion to end. There are no efforts that I know of in the Anglican Communion to stop those incursions from happening. That, too, is a part of the Windsor Report. The Americans would be happy to see some support from the Anglican Communion for stopping those incursions.