Anglican summit scrutinises US stance on gay clergy

DAR ES SALAAM, Feb 16 (Reuters) Anglican leaders discussed the US response to a report criticising the church there for backing gay priests and same-sex unions, a row that could split the third-largest Christian denomination.

The issue is at the heart of this week's critical Anglican summit in Tanzania, with the church's spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, battling to keep a warring liberal minority and a conservative majority together.

Williams has come under pressure from conservatives to discipline the liberal US Episcopal Church for appointing openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003, in a move that outraged traditionalists who say homosexuality is a sin.

Many conservatives among the world's 77 million Anglicans are angry with the US church for appointing a presiding bishop who supports Robinson and what they see as its failure to implement the Windsor Report, which was commissioned by Williams in response to the outcry over Robinson's consecration.

''One of the things the primates have to do is assess whether the Episcopal Church has responded to the Windsor Report,'' Canon Gregory Cameron, an Anglican official, told reporters yesterday.

The 2004 report asked the Episcopal Church to apologise for the Robinson elevation, impose a moratorium on any more like it and make it clear it opposes the blessing of same-sex unions.

SPLIT POSSIBLE Although the Episcopal Church has not consecrated another gay bishop since Robinson, it adopted a non-binding resolution in June that fell well short of a full promise to refrain from doing so in the future.

The Anglican primates were also due yesterday to hear from three American bishops -- representing the hardline conservative, moderate conservative and liberal wings of the church on a range of issues including sexuality.

Aides to US presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, whose presence at the summit has raised hackles among some African archbishops, say she will not waver from her liberal stance on homosexuality.

Her refusal to back down may fuel the call by many conservatives to set up another Anglican church in the United States, led by a ''moderator'', to rival the Episcopal one.

Some officials say such a proposal may aggravate the Anglican split rather than heal it, by setting a precedent for other groups of believers who feel marginalized or at odds with the line taken by their national churches.

It is likely the Jefferts Schori camp would oppose any move that would effectively break apart the Episcopal Church and create serious financial and property conflicts -- even if it is presented as a solution to the bitter deadlock paralyzing the Anglican Communion.

''The cannons and the written laws of the Episcopal Church do not provide for any parallel structure,'' said Bob Williams, one of Jefferts Schori's aides.

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