By Wangui Kanina
August 29, 2007
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The worldwide Anglican Communion lacks the structures needed to end its current impasse over homosexuality, a conservative prelate opposed to gay clergy and same-sex marriages said in Kenya on Wednesday.
Greg Venables, archbishop of the Southern Cone of Americas, was speaking in the capital Nairobi ahead of a controversial ceremony on Thursday where Kenya's Anglican archbishop will consecrate two conservative U.S. clerics as bishops.
"There are no official structures to resolve things, so part of the major struggle we are going through is to work out how we actually resolve a conflict of this nature," he told reporters.
The worldwide Anglican Communion has authorities for each of its 38 provinces, but no umbrella authority above that, said Venables, who is based in Buenos Aires.
The 77 million-strong Communion has been sharply divided since the Episcopal Church, its 2.4 million member U.S. branch, consecrated Gene Robinson as Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop four years ago.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is the spiritual head of the Communion but does not have powers equal to those of Pope Benedict in the Catholic Church. The gay clergy row has sapped his influence and brought the Communion close to schism.
The two clerics to be consecrated on Thursday -- William Atwood and William Murdoch -- are among a growing number of conservative U.S. Anglicans pledging alliance to traditional African bishops who take a tough line against homosexuality.
The U.S. Church has accused Africans of invading their territory by consecrating Americans. But conservative Africans say they only want to provide refuge for orthodox believers who are at odds with liberal views.
"This is a missionary action brought to this point by four years of frustration," Murdoch told the news conference.
"When America and Great Britain send missionaries to Africa it is missionary work, but when Africans send missionaries to the United States, it is boundary crossing."
Murdoch is rector of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Massachusetts, while Atwood is general secretary of the Ekklesia Society, a global group that promotes orthodox Anglicanism.
The Communion is discussing proposals for a so-called Anglican Covenant that could strengthen the Archbishop of Canterbury's authority, but opinions on it are deeply divided.
END
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