Responding to requests from two bishops elsewhere in the Anglican Communion, the Bishop of El Camino Real did not attend the consecration of Bishops Diane Jardine Bruce and Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles on May 15.

A friendship began forming among the Rt. Rev. Mary Gray–Reeves and her two brother bishops — the Rt. Rev. Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester, England, and the Rt. Rev. Gerard Mpango, Bishop of Western Tanganyika, Tanzania — during the Lambeth Conference of 2008. The bishops formed companion relationships among their dioceses, and celebrated those new ties during a service in September 2009 at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, San José, Calif.

Bishop Gray–Reeves wrote that her fellow bishops asked her to abstain from granting consent to Bishop Glasspool’s election or from participating in her consecration.

“In our system, it is consents that allow a bishop to be ordained,” Gray–Reeves wrote in a letter requested by Louie Crew, founder of Integrity, a nonprofit organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Episcopalians and their supporters. “I consented to Mary’s election without hesitation. The laying on of hands makes a bishop, and in other provinces where there is no consent process like ours, this is a very key symbol.”

Gray–Reeves wrote that she “did not come easily to the decision of not attending,” adding: “But the truth is, Mary and Diane had plenty of bishops to get the job done, and my hands were not needed there on May 15th. They were needed to reach other places and so I did.”

Bishop Perham referred to the decision by Gray–Reeves when speaking to the clergy of his diocese on May 6 [Word].

“The absence at the ordination of our Bishop Mary, if I may call her that, is a considerable personal sacrifice for the sake of our unity and out of respect for our position,” he said. “Whatever our position, we need to recognize a lot of pain in ourselves and in those who disagree with us. But my hope is that Bishop Mary’s decision will mean that our partnership can move forward unaffected by the strident voices that will be heard internationally and we can go on working away at maintaining and enhancing the unity of our Communion. Certainly that is how I believe our Tanzanian partners have responded to her decision. I ought to add that I have written a personal letter to Mary Glasspool, who is caught in the middle of a controversy that is not of her making and, whatever you think of the ordination on 15 May, she is in need of our prayers.”

In her letter, Gray–Reeves addressed people who believed she made the decision in response to pressure.

“As people have emailed me or blogged their anger and concern it seems that people think I was pressured by my partner bishops,” she wrote. “Indeed, they made a request — as did many in the Anglican Communion of our entire church — for us not to consent or consecrate Mary. While listening is an important part of our partnership, we respect one another’s autonomy. Hopefully we the body of Christ all make prayerful decisions with one another in mind. You may not like the decision I made, but let me be clear, it was mine to make, not +Michael’s or +Gerard’s.”

Gray–Reeves described her decision as part of her larger ministry of reconciliation within her diocese.

“The successful ministry of El Camino Real depends on us talking, remaining in a graceful conversation that is transformational,” she wrote. “The future of the Communion relies on that same dynamic. An emergent church leader in Seattle I met recently, Eliacin Rosario, said in a conversation I had with him in February, ‘Reconciliation requires something of you.’ That it does. And the big picture of the work may require different things of different people.”

She also stressed her confidence of a warm relationship with her two new sister bishops in the adjoining Diocese of Los Angeles.

“Mary Glasspool and I are friends, having now enjoyed one another’s presence immensely at the last House of Bishops meeting,” she wrote. “What a beautiful human being she is! She knows all about my decision making process. She is my sister bishop — as is Diane — with whom I also shared what I planned to do (their elections and consecrations go hand in hand as a matter of circumstance and my not being at one meant I couldn’t be at the other). Mary and Diane are graceful women, and we look forward to years of serving together as bishops, crossing our border at least occasionally for lunch!”