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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has called the confirmation of a second openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church “regrettable” and said it will have “important implications” for the U.S. church’s role in the wider Anglican Communion.

Despite warnings from Williams, U.S. bishops and regional committees ratified the election of Mary Douglas Glasspool, an open lesbian, as an assistant bishop in Los Angeles. The Episcopal Church announced her confirmation by its bishops March 17 after a majority of regional committees had earlier affirmed her election.

Shortly after same-sex marriage became legal in the District of Columbia, Bishop John Chane of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington said that its priests may preside at such civil marriages in the nation’s capital.

Under guidelines released March 4, which stipulate that no priest is required to preside at such ceremonies, Chane thus joined Episcopal bishops in Vermont and Massachusetts in allowing same-gender marriages.

A majority of dioceses in the Episcopal Church have confirmed the election of an open lesbian as a bishop in Los Angeles, bringing her one step closer to consecration. The Diocese of Los Angeles, where Mary Glasspool was elected as an assistant bishop three months earlier, announced confirmations from 61 of the denomination’s 110 dioceses on March 10.

When my daughter became a teenager, she was invited to serve as an acolyte at our Episcopal church. I thought it would be a wonderful thing to do with her. With her permission, I became an acolyte too—in my mid-forties.