The Bishop of New York

Sighted: a Bishop defending our Church from foreign influence

The Rt. Rev. Mark Sisk, Bishop of New York, has given a pair of interviews, to The New York Times and to Newsweek. The Bishop of New York needs no introduction.

It is useful to recall that Bishop Sisk chaired the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. This Commission wrote the original resolutions on the Windsor Report debated at the General Convention in June, 2006. It is these resolutions (and the ones based on them) that the primates communique calls inadequate.

Here is what Bishop Sisk told the NYT:

"Being part of the Anglican Communion is very important to me. But if the price of that is I have to turn my back on the gay and lesbian people who are part of this church and part of me, I won’t do that."

And Newsweek:

"The challenge is how far are we prepared to go in working with the Communion and squaring that against the relationships we have in our community with members who are gay and lesbian. I would like to think that the Communion needs to hear the voice of the Episcopal Church as well. I am prepared to work quite hard to maintain connections in the Communion, but if it comes to having to choose between the Communion and abandoning my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters—much as I value the Anglican community, I think they will be the losers."

Thank you to Canon Jim Naughton of the Diocese of Washington for pointing these stories out.

Many statements and observations about the primates meeting and communique, state somewhere, that the primates "don't understand" our polity.

They do understand. They just don't care about it. They want what they want and if that means overruling or damaging or changing our polity, so be it.