US bishops face crunch vote on gay split !!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: Guardian UK
September 25, 2007 Author: Fred Attewill


The leaders of the US Episcopal Church vote today on a make-or-break compromise aimed at preventing a global split in the Anglican communion over homosexuality.

The agreement aims to accommodate conservative Anglicans, predominantly from Africa, who have demanded that liberals stop blessing gay couples and ban the appointment of openly gay bishops.

Liberal clergy are expected to continue offering pastoral support to gay couples.

However, senior bishops were also facing ruptures between traditionalists and liberals within the Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the US.

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Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, told the meeting in New Orleans last week that Episcopalians should stay within the church and not seek to align themselves with more fundamentalist provinces in Africa.

Today is the final day of the bishops' meeting and negotiations were expected to continue up to the vote.

The liberal bishop of Los Angeles, Jon Bruno, held out hope for the compromise.

"We are working very closely with one another whether we are on the conservative end of the church, the liberal or the moderate middle," he said.

"We're looking to make as full, clear and complete a response as we can."

Dr Williams was strongly critical of African attempts to recruit dissident parishes in the US. But American conservative bishops complained that the archbishop had refused to see them or return their calls. They are likely to seek oversight from an African province. Their leader, Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh, predicted that about five of the US church's 112 dioceses would seek to affiliate outside the US. The compromise being worked on would also allow dioceses out of sympathy with the church's leadership to seek their own Episcopal oversight and also allow for the setting up of a pastoral council with foreign representatives. No such compromises, however, are likely to appease conservative groups. The worldwide communion has been in turmoil since the Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson, who is gay, as bishop of New Hampshire.