Anglicans playing the angles

National | In trying to deal with the most divisive controversy in the 75-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion—a conflict over homosexuality—the primates (heads) of the communion's 38 Anglican and Episcopal denominations last week may have only deepened it. | Edward E. Plowman

In trying to deal with the most divisive controversy in the 75-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion—a conflict over homosexuality—the primates (heads) of the communion's 38 Anglican and Episcopal denominations last week may have only deepened it.

At issue was whether bishops can allow clergy to "bless" or preside over same-sex unions, as has happened in several dioceses in the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church (U.S.) and one in the 680,000-member Anglican Church of Canada.

Many primates, including most in the Southern Hemisphere (half the world's Anglicans are in Africa now), favored a strong condemnation of same-sex unions as un-Anglican and un-Christian.

Following a week of ecclesiastical arm wrestling behind closed doors on a remote hillside in Brazil, the primates finally settled on a less-than-decisive statement aimed at keeping everybody happy and in the church. Noting a lack of "theological concensus" on the issue, they acknowledged the independence of Anglicans to carry out "pastoral care [toward people] of all sexual orientations."