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Anglican Communion wants U.S. action in gay row
2007-02-19
The Anglican Communion gave the U.S. Episcopal Church a September deadline on Monday to stop blessing same sex unions, but did gave no clear indication of what action it would then take. Anglican Church leaders are meeting in Tanzania to reconcile conservative and liberal views on homosexuality, exacerbated by the U.S. Episcopal Church's consecration of openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. In a statement issued in the final hour of the tense meeting, the Anglican Communion gave the U.S. church the September 30 deadline to meet the request first issued in 2004. "If the reassurances requested of the House of Bishops cannot in good conscience be given, the relationship between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the church in the life of the communion," the statement said. The spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, said it offered "an interim solution that certainly falls very short of resolving all the disputes." Williams has no power to force a solution in the Communion, a loose federation of 38 self-governing churches, which has traditionally run on consensus. However, he said the U.S. church might not be invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference -- a once in a decade meeting of all Anglican bishops -- if it did not comply. "Either they are part of mainstream Anglicanism or they are not," said Martyn Minns, a prominent U.S. cleric who has aligned himself with the conservative Anglican Church in Nigeria. COVENANT Earlier, a group of senior Anglican bishops released a draft covenant that would allow the Communion to sever ties with churches that stepped out of line. But officials expect it to take years for the draft to be finalized. The consecration of Robinson sparked uproar among traditionalists particularly in Africa, home to more than half the world's Anglicans. They have demanded the Americans repent and are now pushing ways to redraw the Anglican world map to exclude liberal-leaning provinces. Relations are so strained between the liberal and conservative factions that seven archbishops refused this week to take communion with U.S. presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in a rebuke at her unwavering support for Robinson and blessings for same sex unions. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who called gay relations "an aberration unknown even in animal relationships," has set up a parallel conservative movement to allow disgruntled U.S. conservatives to place themselves under his oversight. The Anglican Communion wants to discourage such practices and on Monday proposed a "primatial vicar" as an alternative for Episcopalians who reject Jefferts Schori's leadership. Liberals argue that throughout its history Anglicanism has embraced diverse views. But conservatives who read the Bible more literally say liberal trends, such as openness to gays, is leading the church away from its traditional teachings.
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