This section of our website is designed to bring together information about our collective decision to allow the blessing of the covented unions of gay and lesbian Anglicans in the Greater Vancouver area (the Diocese of New Westminster).

We emphasize that we in this diocese continue to do our work of community outreach and care for our parishioners. The blessing of same sex couples is one part of that. The blessing is a way that some priests use to ensure that homosexual people who seek to be included in the Anglican Communion feel safe and respected.

The blessing is a pastoral tool, one of many. Some priests in some parishes (seven currently) have my permission to bless permanent, faithful relationships. I grant that permission only when the priests request it, and a parish, by majority vote, has decided they want to be a place of blessing.

Not all Anglicans in our church wish to participate. As bishop I insist only that those on all sides of the issue respect one another and that everyone should maintain the order of the church. Our goal in the Anglican Church in the Greater Vancouver area is to be a church that accommodates differences.

Michael Ingham
Bishop