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New row looms over US gay bishops
Canon Barlowe's nomination is a challenge to Church leaders
A US Episcopal Church diocese has nominated a gay priest as a candidate for bishop, risking deepening a row with the global Anglican denomination.

The liberal diocese of Newark, New Jersey, named Canon Michael Barlowe as one of four candidates for the post.

A BBC correspondent says the move is a snub to the wider Anglican Church.

A week ago the Episcopal Church agreed to "exercise restraint" in consecrating gay bishops, after a furious row sparked by a previous appointment.

The Anglican Church has been in turmoil since the 2003 election of the gay bishop Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

The denomination is struggling to prevent a split due to differences over the issue.

The traditionalist majority within the Anglican Church has been calling for stricter measures against the ordination of gay bishops.

The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott says Canon Barlowe's nomination could barely have come at a more sensitive moment.

The Episcopal Church, threatened with expulsion from the Anglican Church over its liberal policy on homosexuality, resolved at its ruling convention last week to restrain itself from choosing another gay bishop.

The committee which selected Canon Barlowe accepted that the convention's resolution had presented a challenge but said it had avoided eliminating any suitable candidates because of their sexual orientation.

An election will take place in September.
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US Church defiant on gay bishops
Bishop Gene Robinson is still at the centre of a worldwide row
Members of the US Episcopal Church have rejected a demand from the worldwide Anglican Church that they stop electing gay bishops.

Correspondents say the decision by the Church's House of Deputies could lead to a permanent split within the world Anglican communion.

The US Church attracted the ire of conservative Anglicans by electing gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003.

The issue may still be revived before the end of the conference on Wednesday.

The House of Bishops may try to return to the question of a ban but the House of Deputies - which voted against the move by nearly a two-thirds majority - would have to go back on its decision for it to pass.

In Tuesday's vote the House of Deputies - comprising clergy and lay members - rejected a resolution to "refrain from" nominating gay bishops or developing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.

Two days ago the conference took another radical step by electing a female leader.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori made clear on Monday that she believes homosexuality is not a sin.

'Difficult choices'

BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Piggott in Columbus, Ohio, says Tuesday's vote was a victory for those at either end of the debate.

While liberals felt the resolution went too far in ruling out an official blessing for same-sex unions and opposing the ordination of gay bishops, traditionalists wanted more restrictions.

The Reverend Susan Russell, the president of liberal group Integrity, insisted: "We have much more in common than we do have difference."

Katharine Jefferts Schori has made church history with her election
Canon David Anderson of the traditionalist group the American Anglican Council said the vote showed that the Episcopal Church was not prepared to compromise and had "chosen to walk apart" from the rest of the 77-million member Anglican communion.

Our correspondent says that, despite the threat of expulsion, the latest developments show how jealously the American Church guards its independence and the level of support for its liberal policy on sexuality.

Earlier on Tuesday the Episcopal convention passed an apology for the ordination of Gene Robinson, as requested by Anglican counterparts, but watered down its reference to "breaching the proper constraints" to "straining the bonds of affection".

Many conservative Anglican churches, especially in Africa and Asia, have already broken ties with the US Church over Gene Robinson's elevation.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the religious head of the Anglican Church, warned that the communion was now facing "exceptionally difficult choices" and has said he fears a permanent rift.

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African divide over gay bishop
 
Bishop Robinson was just being honest, says the archbishop
A South African church leader has defended the appointment of an openly gay bishop in the United States against the criticism of other African archbishops.

The Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane, said an appointment in one part of the Anglican church was not a matter that should concern leaders in another part of the church.

Gene Robinson's appointment as bishop of New Hampshire in August led to warnings from evangelical and conservative Anglicanism particularly in Africa, that it could split the church.

Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who leads the largest single church in the 70 million-strong Anglican Communion, led criticism describing it as "a Satanic attack on God's church".

But Mr Ndungane said the subject of women priests and divorce was treated differently by various Anglican communions and homosexuality should be no different.

"Each of the autonomous churches within the Anglican church has its own structures. We have to respect these structures whether we agree with them or not, " he said.

"If the church in the US wants to do its thing then that's its business"

 

Mr Ndungane also warned against the selective use of bible passages in the debate on homosexuality, adding that in the past quotes from the bible had been used to defend slavery and apartheid.

"There is an assumption that there are no god loving and god fearing people in the United States," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa.

Hypocritical?

In comments to the British Guardian newspaper, Mr Ndungane said it was arrogant to assume that Americans did not know what they were doing and said there were other issues that should be priorities for the Anglican church - such as world hunger, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Aids.

He also urged Africa's leaders to be careful of appearing hypocritical.

Africa's church is deeply conservative
"There is a woman waiting to be stoned to death for adultery in Nigeria and yet we are not hearing any fuss from the leadership of the church there about that," he said.

"It is no secret that there are gay clergy and there are gay bishops, and the institutional church seems to be turning a blind eye when we should be encouraging honesty. If Gene Robinson had kept quiet there would have been no issue."

The spiritual head of the Anglican church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has called an emergency meeting next month in London to discuss the impact of Mr Robinson's appointment.

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Q&A: The Anglican Communion
 

The appointment of a gay bishop in the US has put the Archbishop of Canterbury and the world's Anglican churches - the Anglican Communion - back in the spotlight.

What is the Anglican Communion?

A loose international network of separate, individual churches. They range from the liberal (the Episcopal Church in the US) to the more conservative (the Church of Nigeria).

There are nearly 70m people classed as "members" of 38 self-governing churches made up of about 500 dioceses, 30,000 parishes and 64,000 individual congregations in a total of 164 countries.


Who leads the Anglican Communion?

The Church of England's Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Dr Rowan Williams, is head of the Anglican Communion but in fact he has few formal powers.

He is responsible for inviting bishops from around the world to the Lambeth Conference. Every ten years the Conference debates and produces resolutions. But the resolutions are not binding on the churches - they reflect the 'mind of the bishops'.

Every year, the Archbishop also summons the leaders of each Anglican Church to the Primates Meeting, where they discuss recent developments.

But again, nothing binding comes out of the meetings. He certainly cannot force them to do anything. In fact, the Archbishop's main power is the moral authority of his office.

Can the current tensions within the Anglican Communion be resolved?

Here the Archbishop of Canterbury's moral authority can be particularly important. As primus inter pares (first among equals), he can urge patience, prayerfulness and, ultimately, compromise.

It remains to be seen how far this authority will influence the more than 40 churches within the Anglican Communion.

But for all the threats, breaking the spiritual link with the Church of England, and with Canterbury Cathedral, would be a major step for any church.

What about the Church of England?

The Archbishop of Canterbury's position in the Church of England is stronger: he is the President of the Archbishop's Council and Joint President of the General Synod, the Church's parliament.

But even these positions do not give him many formal powers.

The Church is 'hedged about with safeguards' and his only real powers are in Canterbury.

Again, most of his ability to influence others derives from the moral and spiritual authority of his office, and that authority looks likely to be sorely tested in the coming weeks.


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