Tanzania Daily News: Communique 'delaying inevitable schism'

WHEN the Anglican church broke off from Rome on the issue of the marriage of priests, little did they know that the issue will come to haunt them four and a half centuries later. The spectre of same-sex marriage in the general population was not an issue then, but it is an issue now for male and female clerics.

As the year 2006 drifted to an end, the ship of the Anglican Church seemed to be sailing towards stormy arctic waters away from the Cape of Good Hope. The recent meeting in Dar es Salaam showed how difficult it is to heal wounds arising from the consecration of a gay bishop in 2003 in the USA Episcopalian church, and the blessing of same sex marriages that continues in some western churches.

The Dar es Salaam declaration giving the liberal churches until September 2007 deadline to stop blessing same sex marriages and the ordination of gay clergy is a compromise to delay an inevitable schism of the Communion. Read more