Episcopal pioneer reflects on debate

Bishop Barbara C. Harris has seen all this before.

Fourteen years ago, Harris herself was in the eye of the storm, the first woman to become a bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Her consecration as an Episcopal bishop was celebrated by liberals and vehemently criticized by conservatives. Both sides saw her arrival as a historic development in a church that traces its leadership directly back to the apostles of Jesus, all of them men.

Today, at age 73, Harris is retired in a leafy Foxborough subdivision, writing her memoirs, and once again filled with fire as her Episcopal Church battles over another first: Sunday's consecration of the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in Christendom.

"This is a power struggle as to who is going to run the church, the white boys who have always run it or some different kinds of people," Harris said this week in her first extended interview about the Robinson controversy. "White men see their church being changed, and they don't like it."

Opponents of Robinson's consecration, some of whom supported the ordination of women, reject any parallels between the debate over the role of women in the church and the debate over the role of gays and lesbians.

"Even if you are opposed to the ordination of women, you have to say that there are things in Scripture that are positive about women as leaders," said the Rev. Canon Mary Maggard Hays of Pittsburgh, a leading critic of Robinson's ordination. "But when you look at the Scriptures dealing with homosexual behavior, that's not true."

Hays says the debate over Robinson is far more wrenching and far more potentially damaging, than the debate over Harris.

"I was around both times, and the level of anxiety is exponentially different in this case," she said. "The numbers are more, and the intensity is more."

But supporters of Robinson say that the same group of Episcopalians who resisted modernization of the traditional prayerbook, the ordination of women, and the consecration of a woman bishop are now regrouping to take on the ordination of an openly gay man. And they are again warning of a possible schism, an expectation that has never come true.

"What we have here are the same people, only better organized," said Byron Rushing, a Massachusetts state representative long active in the Episcopal Church. "A number of people who are still in the church had problems with prayerbook revision, problems with women's ordination, and they have just been waiting for an opportunity to raise those issues again."

Episcopalians on both sides of the issue agree that several changes since 1989 have intensified the debate over Robinson and increased the likelihood of some kind of split within the global church. The Anglican Communion has grown dramatically in the Southern Hemisphere, where many bishops oppose homosexuality, and the Internet has facilitated alliances between conservatives in the United States and abroad, according to the Rev. Ian T. Douglas, director of Anglican, global, and ecumenical studies at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge.

Harris was consecrated as a suffragan, or assistant, bishop in the Diocese of Massachusetts on Feb. 11, 1989, in a ceremony attended by 8,500 people, including 62 bishops, at the Hynes Convention Center. About 4,000 people, including 54 bishops, are expected tomorrow at the Whittemore Center at the University of New Hampshire to watch Robinson be consecrated as bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire, home to 12,000 Episcopalians. Harris said she was controversial not only because of her gender, but also because she is black, divorced, outspoken, and does not have a traditional seminary degree. She said that she had spoken to Robinson to offer him advice on how to weather the storm and that she planned to attend the ceremony tomorrow as a coconsecrator.

"The church, over the centuries, has withstood controversies of all kinds and has remained the church," she said. "Yes, there have been defections from the church, and some people have gone away mad and angry, but the church has withstood this, and I don't think schism is going to happen in Gene's case."

Harris said she received death threats before her ordination and for years after. She said she had to change her telephone number several times to dodge harassing phone calls. She said that at least one bishop refused to recognize a priest she had ordained. And, she said, she knows that she will always be a symbol for many people, as the first woman bishop in the Episcopal Church.

"To become an icon for people is a difficult position in which to find yourself, and I was not prepared for it," she said.

"For a long time I received ugly correspondence, some of which had racial overtones, and certainly for the first several months it was like living in a fishbowl," she said. "My every word and every move was scrutinized." But while the move by the Episcopal Church to ordain women as priests and bishops stirred controversy within the global Anglican Communion, such appointments have since become common. At least 23 of the 38 Anglican provinces around the world now ordain women as priests, and Canada and New Zealand have elected women bishops.

The controversy over change in the Episcopal Church will be readily visible at tomorrow's consecration, which is to take place at the UNH hockey arena in Durham. During Robinson's consecration, two individuals are expected to lodge formal objections, one a New Hampshire woman who will speak on behalf of New Hampshire Episcopalians who oppose Robinson's consecration, and the other Bishop David Bena of Albany, who will represent American and Canadian bishops opposed to the consecration. Conservative Episcopalians will hold an alternative worship service at an evangelical Protestant church in Durham at the same time as the Robinson consecration.

"This is historic, in the sense that Gene has been open and honest about his sexuality, but he is by no means the first gay bishop, which is why I think some of the fuss being made is hypocritical," Harris said. "People know very well that we've had gay bishops before, but they haven't talked about it."

Harris said she has advised Robinson to keep a low profile after the consecration, focusing on his duties as bishop of New Hampshire, a job he will take on in March.

"I'm sure he'll have a few butterflies, as well he should, but this is also going to be a very joyful celebration, and it's going to mean a lot to a number of people who have been marginalized in the church," she said.

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.