Anglican Communion

WASHINGTON -- The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori was empowered to take charge of the Episcopal Church yesterday in a Gothic sanctuary filled with well-wishers and clouds of incense, becoming the first woman to lead a national church in the Anglican Communion's 520-year history. The investiture of Jefferts Schori, an airplane pilot and former oceanographer, as presiding bishop of the denomination drew a standing ovation from the 3,200 people in Washington's National Cathedral, which was decorated with banners and flowers displaying the "colors of dawn" she selected as a motif: blues, greens, orange, silver and gold.

Yielding to pressure from international Anglican leaders, the Episcopal Church agreed yesterday to "exercise restraint by not consenting" to the consecration of openly gay bishops, wording that some found oppressive and others called too vague. The resolution, which technically applies to any bishop "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion," followed Tuesday's defeat by the church's largest legislative body of a more strongly worded moratorium.

Of the fates that might await the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold after he retires as the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, obscurity will not be one of them. When the history of the angry disputes in mainline Protestantism over the acceptance of homosexuality is written, Griswold, 68, will be remembered for leading the Episcopal Church when it elected the first openly gay man as a bishop. The decision deeply offended some in the church, and many primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the American arm, saw it as a blatant disregard of Scripture.

The World Gunmen kidnapped the head of the CARE humanitarian group in Iraq, a British-born woman in her 60s who has been critical of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has worked for three decades to improve conditions there. The kidnapping of Margaret Hassan triggered appeals for her release from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Muslim humanitarian groups. An Anglican Communion panel in London rebuked the Episcopal Church for approving its first gay bishop, but the Episcopal leadership showed no sign of retreat in a simmering dispute that has threatened to split the global church.

An Anglican Communion panel in London rebuked the Episcopal Church yesterday for approving its first gay bishop, but the Episcopal leadership showed no sign of retreat in a simmering dispute that has threatened to split the global church. The report, issued by an advisory commission of the worldwide Anglican Communion, called for the Episcopal Church to express regret for consecrating Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who leads the Diocese of New Hampshire, and place a moratorium on similar promotions.

LONDON - A panel appointed by the archbishop of Canterbury is poised to unveil recommendations tomorrow on how to head off possible schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion triggered by the consecration of a gay American bishop. While the Lambeth Commission's recommendations are known to only a few, there is widespread speculation that the Episcopal Church, the self-governing U.S. member of the Anglican Communion, will be disciplined or rebuked over the consecration last year of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

Two Southern California Episcopal parishes announced yesterday that they had broken with the national church over the issue of homosexuality, placing themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop from Africa. The announcement by All Saints Church in Long Beach, Calif., and St. James Parish in Newport Beach, Calif., escalated a confrontation within the Episcopal Church over the role of gay clergy and the proper interpretation of Scripture. The move marked the first time that any of the 147 parishes in the six-county Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese had made good on threats to pull out of the 2.3 million-member national Episcopal Church.

VERO BEACH, Fla. - Rick Lindsey left a short, but telling phone message last fall for his longtime friend and fellow Episcopal priest, Lorne Coyle. "Are we OK?" he asked. Coyle and Lindsey met as seminary students in the 1970s, and they're godfathers to each other's children. But they hadn't spoken in months. The reason: The Episcopal Church had confirmed the election of its first openly gay bishop. Coyle, an evangelical who interprets Scripture strictly, was against the move, while Lindsey, a social and theological liberal, called it progress.

By reading the great journals of opinion, it is hard not to believe that the Anglican Communion, known in the United States as the Episcopal Church and in Britain as the Church of England, is in tatters. The Nigerian Church, we are advised, is set to break away, as might Episcopal congregations in Pennsylvania and Texas. The cause of the controversy is the consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire. Conservative commentators, such as George Will, have argued that if the church does not hold to biblical writ and doctrinal law, it will implode.

LONDON - Anglican leaders expressed deep regret yesterday over U.S. Episcopalians' appointment of their first openly gay bishop, emphasizing that his coming consecration put "in jeopardy" the future of the global community. In a unanimous statement that included a strongly worded rebuke to the U.S. Episcopal Church, the 37 leaders said the consecration would "tear the fabric of our communion at its deepest level." It also "may lead to further division on this and further issues as provinces have to decide in consequence whether they can remain in communion with provinces that choose not to break communion with the Episcopal Church," said the statement, issued at the end of a two-day emergency summit.