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Archbishop fears Church 'rupture'
BBC News
3/5/2006
The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that the worldwide Anglican Church faces a fundamental "rupture" on the issue of homosexuality.
Dr Rowan Williams told BBC One's The Heaven and Earth Show he feared any split could take decades to heal.
Traditionalists have given the Church in the US until June to reverse its approach on ordaining gay clergy - or face expulsion from the Communion.
Some liberals back a looser, federal structure for the Anglican Communion.
Dr Williams said he feared any split would run too deep to make this possible.
The archbishop, who is visiting Sudan, was speaking in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.
"If there is a rupture, it's going to be a more visible rupture, it is not going to settle down quietly to being a federation," he said.
"And I suppose my anxiety about it is that if the communion is broken we may be left with even less than a federation."
'Starkest warning'
He warned that it could take decades to re-establish some sort of relationship between the different factions in the Anglican Communion.
BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Piggott said the comments were "Dr Williams' starkest public warning about the impending schism in the Anglican Communion over sexuality".
Our correspondent said the archbishop seemed to be aiming his remarks at the American Church.
The church has been given until its governing convention meets in June to reverse its liberal approach to the ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex relationships.
Traditionalists insist that active homosexuality is outlawed by the Bible.
The ordination in the US of openly-gay Gene Robinson as a bishop has been threatening to split the communion.
Anomaly
His appointment as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 sparked a row across the Anglican Communion, with many conservative, evangelical and developing world priests outraged.
In a separate interview, Dr Williams criticised the US government's detention without trial of people at Guantanamo Bay.
He branded the detention camp in Cuba as an "extraordinary legal anomaly".
Dr Williams told Sir David Frost, in an interview for BBC News: "Any message given that any state can just over-ride some of the basic habeas corpus-type provisions, is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future.
"What, in 10 years' time, are people going to be able to say about a system that tolerates this."
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Archbishop fears gay 'rupture' of Anglican church
by Jonathan Petre
THE TELEGRAPH
5/3/2006
The Archbishop of Canterbury has said he fears that divisions over gay priests and gay bishops may tear the Anglican Communion into two irreconcilable factions.
Dr Rowan Williams warned that it may take decades to re-establish relations if there was a split.
In an interview with Sir David Frost for BBC News, he said: "If there is a rupture, it's going to be a more visible rupture, it's not just going to settle down quietly into being a federation.
"I suppose my anxiety about it is that if the Communion is broken we may be left with even less than a federation."
Dr Rowan Williams has previously backed calls for a moratorium on the election of gay bishops.
Speaking in Khartoum, Sudan, during a one-week World Food Programme tour of the country, Dr Williams also launched a scathing verbal attack on Guantanamo Bay, branding the US prison camp an "extraordinary legal anomaly".
He said it set a dangerous precedent to keep in custody people who had not been found guilty or allowed access to proper legal channels.
"Any message given, that any state can just over-ride some of the basic habeas corpus type provisions, is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future.
"What, in 10 years' time, are people going to be able to say about a system that tolerates this," he said.
Dr Williams, who was elected as Archbishop of Canterbury in July 2002, added that during his time as head of the Anglican Communion he had made great efforts to reach out to moderate Muslims in an effort to combat terrorism.
He said he believed terrorism was an "insult to God and man".
The reaction of Muslims in some parts of the world to the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed had been a "hysterical overreaction", he said, but the violence stemmed from their perception of themselves as "constantly being pushed to the edge of every discussion and every negotiation in the world".
