From the Guardian: Anglican leaders avoid church split over homosexuals

February 15th, 2007 posted by kendall at 7:23 pm

The primates of the worldwide Anglican communion appeared last night to have stepped back from moves to exclude the US Episcopal church over its liberal position towards gay people.

A report by a group headed by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, given to the churches’ archbishops and presiding bishops at their biannual meeting in Tanzania yesterday said the Americans had largely done everything required of them in reining back on consecrating gay bishops and expressing their regret for straining relations with other Anglicans.

The Rev Colin Coward, a gay English Anglican who was lobbying the meeting on behalf of the pressure group Changing Attitude, said: “We are very pleased and delighted … The archbishops have come up with a surprisingly realistic assessment of the reality of life in the communion for gay and lesbian people.”

The seven-page report, written by a group chaired by Dr Williams, was a rebuff to conservative Anglicans, including a number of English bishops, who have been asserting that the Americans have been insufficiently compliant with Anglican restrictions on gay people.

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Posted in ANGLICAN, Primates, Dar es Salaam 2007 | Edit | 2 Comments »