The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams is set to hold a secret meeting with homosexual members of the Church of England, The Times newspaper has claimed.
According to the newspaper’, Dr Williams will hold a secret Eucharist with gay and lesbian members of his church at St Peter's, Belgravia in London.
The newspaper reports that he will deliver a speech titled "Present realities and future possibilities for lesbians and gay men in the Church" in what is expected to be an attempt to ease the divisions on the issue of homosexuality.
A spokesperson for Dr Williams said, “It should come as no surprise that the archbishop is meeting pastorally with clergy and others affected by the current debates in the Church.
"Such encounters extend right across the range of opinions within the Church."
According to The Times, the meeting will take place under strict confidentiality rules, a move which has attracted criticism from a number of lobby groups.
"We are astonished at the attempts to make the meeting clandestine when it would be far better to have this in the open," Rev Richard Kirker of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) told the newspaper.
"The fact that he wants to go there without anyone knowing he's going there makes it quite clear that he has an attitude towards the event that he doesn’t have at any other meetings."
However, Dr Williams' spokesperson added: "Few of these encounters ever reach the public domain. That is as it should be."
