Drive to bar Schori from Primates' meeting

The Archbishop of Canterbury's efforts to defuse the bitter Anglican row over gays looked increasingly doomed last night after conservative leaders threatened to bar a leading liberal from a crisis meeting in Africa next week.

Dr Rowan Williams invited Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new head of the liberal American Church, in the hope that the warring factions might reach a compromise if they could talk face-to-face.

The primates' meeting is regarded as a last-ditch attempt to avert a formal split over homosexuality, and Dr Williams has even asked conservative American bishops to fly in to appear even-handed.

But in a humiliating blow to the Archbishop's authority, senior conservative leaders privately wrote to him last month warning that he had no right to invite Bishop Schori to the summit without their consent. Read more