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'US churches are pro-gay'
23/06/2006 21:06 - (SA)
Dakar - Africa's Anglican bishops have attacked their United States counterparts for failing to condemn homosexuality.
In an open letter after a meeting in Kampala, Uganda, they told conservative Episcopalians that they still supported them in their opposition to the pro-gay stand of the US church, which includes the first gay bishop in the Anglican communion.
The head of the council of Anglican provinces of Africa, Nigerian archbishop Peter Akinola, said Anglican primates from the developing world would meet in September to give a more detailed statement on the US church.
Akinola, one of the church's most outspoken voices against gay rights, said the African bishops had carefully followed a US Anglican convention in Ohio this week.
"We have observed the commitment shown by your church to the full participation of people in same gender sexual relationships in civic life, church life and leadership," he said on behalf of African bishops on Thursday.
"Our churches cannot reconcile this with the teaching on marriage set out in the holy scripture and repeatedly affirmed throughout the Anglican communion."
'US is flouting Anglican teaching'
The Anglican communion is a loose union of national churches representing 77 million people around the world.
It was plunged into crisis after the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay bishop in 2003, and Canadian Anglicans started blessing same-sex marriages.
African bishops, who believe homosexuality is un-biblical, un-African and morally wrong, say the US church is flouting centuries-old Anglican teaching and must repent for its actions, raising fears of a schism within the communion.
In a compromise aimed at appeasing conservatives and averting a full-blown split, US bishops agreed this week, in a non-binding resolution, to try to avoid consecrating openly gay bishops but stopped short of condemning homosexuality.
But Akinola's letter made it clear that African church leaders thought this did not go far enough.
"When we meet with other primates from the Global South in September, we shall present our concerted pastoral and structural response," he said, referring to the developing world group of mostly conservative Anglican churches.
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