Anglicanism faces schism over gay priests, women bishops

A divisive row over homosexuality and women bishops has left the worldwide Anglican Communion facing one of its worst ever crises, to the point where there is talk of an irrevocable schism.

"The crisis is unprecedented since the Reformation devastated the Roman Catholic Church in England in the 16th century," The Times said Tuesday in a front-page article on a threat by 1,300 clergy to quit over women bishops.

And on Sunday after a conference in Jerusalem, some 300 conservative bishops and archbishops announced the creation of a new grouping that does not recognise the authority of Anglican leader the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The conservatives, who criticise liberal attitudes towards homosexuality and the "spiritual decline" in the West, proposed a council of primates, formed of five African and one South American clergy to become its highest authority.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who is the Church of England's highest-ranking cleric, on Monday described the proposals from the Jerusalem meeting, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), as "problematic".

"I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed," he said in a statement. "It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion.

"If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve."

Williams invited the dissidents to the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, Anglicanism's once-a-decade meeting of high-ranking clergy from around the world, to discuss the situation.

The conference is to be held in Canterbury, southeast England, from July 16 to August 4, but most of those who attended GAFCON have said they will not attend.

SseAnglicanism faces schism over gay priests, women bishops AFP