Are the SCECAC resolutions intended to authorize private blessings?

One question I raised in the entry immediately below on the SCECAC report is whether the part of resolution A162 that would affirm "the need to maintain a breadth of private responses to situations of individual pastoral care for gay and lesbian Christians" is intended by the report's authors as code for private, as distinguished from public, rites of blessing.

This seems to be answered in the affirmative by one Commission member, Sarah Dylan Breuer, in an article in The Witness, as follows: 

For example, [the SCECAC report] adopts the Windsor Report's language of "private pastoral response" to include Eucharists with blessings for same-sex couples with a text devised or adopted for the occasion, as opposed to authorized rites, which the report clearly defines in paragraph 53 as those appearing in the Book of Common Prayer, the Book of Occasional Services, and Enriching Our Worship 1 and 2. It's language that I take was sufficiently clear for the authors of the Windsor Report, and I understand why some might feel that Windsor's most enthusiastic readers will better receive our response if it uses the Windsor Report's language when possible, but I continue to think that we could find language that is clearer internationally and also would work better in our own context. 

The Windsor Report's reference to a breadth of private responses to situations of individual pastoral care was contained in a quotation (WR paragraph 143) from the Primates' Pastoral Letter of May 2003:

This is distinct from the duty of pastoral care that is laid upon all Christians to respond with love and understanding to people of all sexual orientations. As recognised in the booklet True Union, it is necessary to maintain a breadth of private response to situations of individual pastoral care.

But what does True Union in the Body say about this?  Section 5, "Embodying True Grace: The Pastoral Response of the Church" is recommended reading in its entirety, but in it we find, "Pastoral care that is shaped by this costly grace will resist actions to legitimate same-sex unions and seek to show that, because they are in theological error, such actions by the Church do not contain within them the promised seed of freedom." (paragraph 5.15)  "Thus the decision to bless same-sex unions, rather than assisting a life of faithful witness and being good pastoral practice, sends out contradictory messages concerning the Christian life.  It undermines faithful witness by leading Christian believers into areas of real temptation and indeed sin." (paragraph 5.16)

Thus Commission member Breuer not only makes a claim that is not stated directly in the Commission's report, but the claim is wholly at odds with the underlying sources cited.

Comments

[Karen B.]

Really helpful clarification. Great work in comparing Dylan's words with "True Union" (an excellent document we too readily forget!)

Thanks for your excellent blog entries on this Special Commission report!