Anglican Conservatives say US Bishops Failed to Repent

A weeklong meeting of Anglican conservatives held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi concluded that the U.S. Episcopal Church have failed to repent for the consecration of a homosexual bishop.

Ending on Friday 28th January, the gathering drew more than 30 conservative Anglican archbishops and bishops from Africa, Asia and Latin America. At the meeting they discussed their reactions towards the recommendations made by a commission for resolving the current rift between conservatives and liberals over homosexuality.

The Lambeth Commission published the Windsor Report in October 2004, which aims to find out the solution for the crisis. It urged the Episcopal Church not to elect any more gay bishops and called on conservative African bishops to stop meddling in the affairs of other dioceses.

However, all archbishops and bishops in this recent meeting declared that an apology from the U.S. Episcopal Church did not go far enough to heal the rift in the Communion over the consecration of the denomination's first openly gay bishop.

Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola explained that the U.S. bishops apologised to individual church members in a letter issued earlier this month expressing "sincere regret" for consecrating the gay cleric Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire without full consideration of other Anglicans' objections. However, they still failed to repent for an act he said was contrary to their faith.

"We are talking about theology, we are talking about scripture," he added. In fact, previously the Nigerian Archbishop has also criticised the Windsor report for not using proper languages to rebuke those who are promoting sexual sins as holy and acceptable behaviour.

"That gives us a very big question mark whether we are together or not," said Malawi's Archbishop Bernard Malango.

The Windsor Report is going to be put forward to the General Synod of the Church of England for further discussion. The Synod will begin on 17th February in Ireland where all the archbishops and bishops are expected to attend. Therefore, now they are all very circumspect about their views on the recommendations, saying they did not want to pre-empt the General Synod next month.