4 Episcopal dioceses want out of church -- Opposition to gays in clergy

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/29/6 | Matthai Chakko Kuruvila

[SmithL]

The Episcopal diocese of the San Joaquin Valley and three others around the country opposed to the ordination of gays have asked to break from their more liberal U.S. counterparts, threatening a schism in the 77 million-member global Anglican Communion.

The Diocese of San Joaquin announced its decision Wednesday, a day after the archbishop of Canterbury, the faith's international spiritual leader, proposed lesser status for dioceses that don't go along with still-unspecified guidelines that could limit same-sex unions and ordination of gays and lesbians. Conservative dioceses endorse such guidelines but are still looking to dissociate themselves from the more liberal U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion, which is known as the Episcopal Church.

The archbishop's proposal will play out dramatically in California, which includes churches at both ends of the ideological spectrum: San Francisco clergy have been blessing gay unions for 27 years, while the Diocese of San Joaquin still refuses to ordain women.

California "shows the extremes in the church," said the Rev. Ann Coburn, outreach director for the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, an Episcopal seminary.

The faith has no centralized power -- the archbishop of Canterbury cannot dictate policy as the pope does in the Roman Catholic Church -- and gives relatively broad independence to member churches, which are linked mainly by their common ancestry in the Church of England and generally follow its practices.

[Sarcastic1]

Do we know who the other 3 dioceses are ?

[SmithL]

San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, South Carolina and Fort Worth

[sionnsar]

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[N. Theknow]

Hopefully, you can add Central Florida to that list very soon.

[Sarcastic1]

Thanks

[mia joe]

Lets hope Kentucky soon follows, doubt it though, Lexington is liberal and getting so left they now have a reverand who abandoned her children in the 1980's and comes back in the last year as a Reverand at Christ Church Cathedral claiming the church has to do something about the poverty in that state! Stating that children are suffering. Too bad she never came out of her "Dead beat Mom" role and helped her own two boys she turned her back on.