Bishops boycott global meeting

2008-02-15 15:33

Kampala - Uganda's Anglican bishops will boycott a once-a-decade gathering of church leaders from around the world, the latest fallout from a fierce debate over homosexuality and scripture in the 77 million-member fellowship.

Splits between Anglican liberals and conservatives reached a crisis in 2003 after the Episcopal Church - the United States wing of the global Anglican Communion - consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V Gene Robinson.

Problems mounted in 2006 with the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori, who supported ordaining gays, as the first female leader of the US church.

"We are not going for the Lambeth conference," Aron Mwesigye, a spokesperson for the Ugandan church, said on Thursday of meetings scheduled in July in England of all the bishops in the Anglican world. "The consecration of gay bishops in the USA is unacceptable."

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the communion, had struggled to hold off one of the biggest meltdowns in Christianity in centuries, but he lacked any direct authority to force a compromise.

Whether Williams can persuade bishops to attend Lambeth Conference will be a measure of the strength of the communion.

- AP