Halfway covenant

Religion | ECUSA bishops again express regret without repentance | Edward E. Plowman

It was a tense moment at the six-day closed-door meeting of 130 active and retired Episcopal bishops in Texas last month.

Episcopal Church (ECUSA) Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold singled out Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and five other leading conservative ECUSA members for criticism. He accused them of helping to foment sentiment against ECUSA by primates, or top leaders, of the worldwide Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality. (The ECUSA is one of 38 "provinces" of the Communion.)

To avert a split in the Communion, the primates at a February meeting in Northern Ireland had called on ECUSA to observe a moratorium on consecrating any more noncelibate homosexuals and on same-sex blessings (see "'Broken' Communion," March 12). They asked ECUSA to refrain from sending delegates to periodic meetings of the important Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) until 2008, when all the world's Anglican bishops will gather for the decennial Lambeth Conference. This gesture meant the American church was considered "outside" the Anglican family until it agreed to repent and abide by biblical Anglican teaching.