The head of the
worldwide Anglican Communion has warned that the church
of 70 million people may fundamentally split over the
consecration of gay bishops. The archbishop of
Canterbury, Rowan Williams, told a BBC television show
over the weekend that the move by the Episcopal Church,
the Communion's American branch, to fully include gay people
may result in a permanent "rupture," reports The
Daily Telegraph in London.
"If there is a rupture, it's going to be a more
visible rupture; it is not going to settle down
quietly to being a federation,'' Williams said. "And I
suppose my anxiety about it is that if the Communion is
broken, we may be left with even less than a federation.''
The remarks are the archbishop's strongest yet
on the topic and come ahead of the Episcopal Church's
General Convention in Ohio in June, at which
American leaders are under pressure to sign off on a
moratorium prohibiting the consecration of gay bishops
as well as the blessing of unions of gay couples.
The issue of the church's full inclusion of gay
people was touched off by the consecration of New
Hampshire's V. Gene Robinson as the Anglican
Communion's first openly gay bishop in 2003. Last week the
diocese of California announced that two of the five
candidates to become its new bishop are gay or
lesbian. (Advocate.com)
