Anglican bishops hammering out truce over homosexuality

News 2006-09-12 Anglican bishops hammering out truce over homosexuality Episcopal Church may call truce over gay issues Anglican bishops meeting in New York on Mond

Anglican bishops meeting in New York on Monday have called for a kind of temporary truce in an effort to avert a full-blown schism in the Episcopal Church over the issue of homosexuality. The most likely outcome is a “two-church solution” for the United States, reports The [London] Times, allowing conservatives and liberals to exist, separate but side by side, as members of the worldwide Anglican communion.

The bishops are planning on drawing up a pact this week, giving the appearance of unity and enabling a final deal to be hammered out at the Lambeth Conference in 2008. They will will consider a paper from the seven conservative dioceses of the Episcopal Church that oppose the leadership of liberal U.S. bishop Katharine Schori and have appealed to the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, for alternative oversight. The conservatives argue that there are already, in effect, two churches under one roof in the United States and appeal for a special “commissary” to be appointed to look after them and enable a “cease-fire” until a peace treaty is reached at Lambeth, TheTimes reports.

Sources have told The Times that the aim is for Williams to invite all 890 bishops and archbishops to the Lambeth Conference. That would include gay New Hampshire bishop Gene Robinson, whose consecration in 2003 triggered the crisis, and any other openly gay bishops consecrated since. Although the Nigerian bishops are among those who have have pledged to boycott the conference if Bishop Robinson is present, sources hope that they might be persuaded to turn up if a settlement can be reached.

“It is remarkable that they are even talking to each other,” said one senior source of the bishops meeting in New York. “There is a seriously big go-wrong factor here. This is an internal meeting, but it has huge external implications for the whole church.” (The Advocate)

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