A former Anglican bishop who has led a campaign against ordaining gays and lesbians says he feels terrible that his colleagues in eastern Newfoundland are being asked to declare their allegiance to the church.

Donald Harvey, the former bishop for eastern Newfoundland, has been campaigning for several years against and is affiliated with a conservative breakaway group, the Anglican Network in Canada.

'If I think someone's house is on fire, I feel it is my responsibility to tell them,' Donald Harvey, a controversial former Anglican bishop, says.
(CBC)

His successor, Cyrus Pitman, sent a letter to clergy members in December instructing them, in effect, to declare their allegiances to the Anglican Church or to the group affiliated with Harvey. In the latter case, Pitman said clergy should then "do the honourable thing, and resign."

"Because of the mess I seem to have stirred up, it is unfortunate that trouble with me should extend to them in that particular way," Harvey told CBC News on Thursday.

In the interview, Harvey said Pitman's letter puts other clergy in a difficult spot.

"The tone of it is devastating," he said, "because it is indicating that the clergy need to … have their licences renewed, which they will do by renewing their vows."

Pitman is requiring priests from 33 different parishes in the diocese to attend a meeting on Jan. 21 in St. John's.

Little support for Harvey's views: church official

Pitman is not doing interviews about his letter, although a senior official in the Newfoundland and Labrador church indicated that support for Harvey's views is small.

"It needs to be noted that there is not a single priest that has left our church. Not a single congregation, not a single parish," said Geoff Peddle, executive archdeacon of the Anglican Church in eastern Newfoundland.

"There has been not a single departure from our community," Peddle said Friday.

Peddle said Harvey's decision to break with the church has had no immediate effect on other clergy.

"At a personal level, it's rather hurtful, and I'm not the only priest who feels somewhat hurt [and] a little confused by [Harvey's] actions," Peddle said. "But life goes on."

Despite feeling "sad" for other priests, Harvey said he is not apologetic for speaking out against gay ordination, and breaking with the church where he spent his career.

"God moves in mysterious ways," Harvey said. "If he is using me for this, then he is using me in this way … If I think someone's house is on fire, I feel it is my responsibility to tell them, whether they are aware of it or not."

Peddle, though, said Harvey is dramatically overestimating how interested ordinary Anglicans are in the same-sex ordination controversy.

"This issue just doesn't seem to have legs in this diocese," Peddle said. "We are not hearing an outpouring of concern around this issue."

That said, the broader issue of the presence of gays and lesbians in the church, particularly involving marriage, has sparked a furious debate worldwide. Peddle said local clergy will continue to listen to what their parishioners have to say.