Anglicans avoid schism - for now

2007-02-21 12:49

Dar es Salaam - A five-day meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania avoided an immediate schism over the issue of homosexuality, but left the Church divided and vulnerable to a permanent rift in the future.

"We'll have challenging work in the Episcopal church," Bishop Katharine Jeffery Schori said on Tuesday, a day after the synod ended in Dar es Salaam with an ultimatum to the US branch of the Anglican communion.

In a written statement, Anglican leaders gave the US Episcopals until September 30 to respond to demands that it cease appointing gay clergy and stop blessing same-sex unions.

"It is not an easy task to generate the consensus to respond as we have been asked," admitted Schori, who is the presiding bishop of the American Episcopals.

The synod statement made it clear that failure to meet the ultimatum could result in the schism that the head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, has struggled to avoid.

If the reassurances requested of the Episcopals are not forthcoming, "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.

'Crisis'

The crisis within the 77-million-strong global Anglican community was triggered in 2003 when the US Church approved the appointment of an openly-gay bishop, angering more conservative branches of the Church, particularly in Africa.

The synod statement recognised "the reality of increased tension in the life of the Anglican Communion - tension so deep that the fabric of our common life together has been torn."

And it laid the blame for the rift squarely at the door of the US Church.

"At the heart of our tension is the belief that that the Episcopal Church has departed from the standard teaching on homosexuality accepted by the Communion," the statement said.

"The Episcopal ministry of a person living in a same-sex relationship is not acceptable to the majority of the Communion," it added.

- AFP