|TOP|The head of the US Episcopal Church has come out to warn members of the Diocese of California that the confrontation over the consecration over gay bishops will only widen if they elect another gay bishop.

Elections for the new Bishop of California will take place in two weeks when parishioners from across the diocese, which centres upon San Francisco, choose from the shortlist of six candidates, three of whom are gay.

In an interview with The Guardian, presiding bishop of ECUSA, Frank Griswold, said: “The diocese needs to respect the sensibilities of the larger communion. It will note what is going on in the life of the church and make a careful and wise decision.

“It will then be up to the house of bishops to give or withhold their consent. Given what has happened over the last three years, I think there will be increased sensitivity."

|QUOTE|Earlier in the month an Episcopal Church Panel studying the issue recommended that the Episcopal Church in America (ECUSA) offer an “apology and repentance” for the problems it has caused in the global Communion by consecrating the first openly gay bishop Gene Robinson.

Bishop Griswold said: "It would sadden me greatly if there was a real break in the Anglican Communion, because we are members one of another and share a common baptism. All of us would be diminished if any part of the communion was expelled.

"I am very aware that issues of poverty, disease and civil war are life and death issues of the sort we should be concentrating on, not our preoccupation with a particular manifestation of sexuality. I think it is possibly the work of the Evil One, making us fixate on sexuality rather than the more urgent things of the world."

The head of ECUSA stressed the urgent need for more face-to-face talks with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on the issue of same-sex bishops.

|AD|“We both live under stresses and strains, and it is important not to have second-hand communication, to meet face to face. It enables me to hear his concerns and he can hear some from me. He knows ECUSA very well and we have known each other for years but what he is probably most aware of are some of the more angular expressions of concern from various factions in our church."

A recent survey of American Episcopal Church bishops found that more than fifty per cent of American bishops said they did not support the consecration of Gene Robinson.

In the survey, 58 per cent of the bishops responding said they would not support gay blessings, and 56 per cent said they opposed the consecration of Bishop Robinson.

More than 20 of the church’s 38 autonomous provinces, particularly those in the Global South, have broken or threatened to break links with the US church over the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003.