Liberals in church 'pursuing gay agenda'

London Telegraph ^ | 19 May 2004 | Jonathan Petre

[ahadams2]

Liberals in church 'pursuing gay agenda'

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent

The Anglican crisis over homosexuality deepened yesterday when a leading conservative accused liberals of pushing ahead with their agenda despite the imminent danger of schism.

The Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, said that last month's appointment of Dr Jeffrey John as Dean of St Albans had seriously undermined pleas for the warring parties to show restraint.

He added that a debate by the Anglican Church in Canada on gay marriages later this month was a further provocation, as was the treatment of conservative parishes by liberal bishops in America.

In a letter reflecting the fury of the conservatives, the Archbishop also criticised the chairman of the Lambeth Commission, set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury to avert schism, for appearing to favour the liberals.

The accusation against the Primate of Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames, is particularly embarrassing because Archbishop Gomez is a fellow member of the 17-strong commission, hand-picked by Dr Rowan Williams.

The dispute is the first to surface publicly from within the commission upon which the Church's future depends, and will raise fears that the body will not be able to produce a unanimous report in October.

In his reply to Archbishop Gomez, Dr Eames implicitly acknowledged that the liberals were in danger of destabilising attempts to broker a peace deal between the factions.

But he failed to provide any indication of how the liberal agenda could be curbed.

Archbishop Gomez, the conservatives' most respected spokesman, said that his wing of the Church - the vast majority of Anglicans worldwide - had heeded calls for restraint, but the liberals had not.

"This is only likely to create a situation where the playing field is perceived as skewed - conservative reaction is held back, whilst liberal viewpoints are allowed to claim too much territory," he said.

"It creates the question in many minds, 'Why should we wait, if others are not showing the same restraint?' "

Dr Eames signalled in his reply that there could be an effort to persuade the Canadian General Synod against backing a motion in Niagara that would pave the way for same sex unions in the province. He said all sides should "hold back from advancing controversial causes until, as a Communion, we have begun to discern publicly the way in which to handle the issues."

[ahadams2]

Ping.

[dsc]

"But he failed to provide any indication of how the liberal agenda could be curbed."

He didn't get any clues from the way Bush "curbed" Hussein?

[r9etb]

In a letter reflecting the fury of the conservatives, the Archbishop also criticised the chairman of the Lambeth Commission, set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury to avert schism, for appearing to favour the liberals. The accusation against the Primate of Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames, is particularly embarrassing because Archbishop Gomez is a fellow member of the 17-strong commission, hand-picked by Dr Rowan Williams.

The context of the Africans' letter of yesterday begins to become apparent....

[ahadams2]

yep, it also explains why eames is so upset - he probably thought he could talk the Christians into accepting the heretics, or at least appearing to do so, and now that isn't possible. Being heretical himself this leaves him with no viable option for holding the Anglican Communion together under terms that the heretics will find acceptable.