The General Convention went ahead with it, and what we have right now are the consequences of what we in ECUSA have done. You may call it all negative, or declare that those in the rest of the Communion are being too negative, but the Primates of the Anglican Communion call it being faithfull, being faithful to Holy Scripture and being faithful to Apostolic Doctrine and to our Lord.

You certainly may disagree with them, and look for, and call for, some compromise or middle ground, or some negotiations that can resolve the matter. Many of our bishops, and others in ECUSA are saying exactly that, but as I read the Windsor Report, and the Primates Communique, there is absolutely no compromise with ECUSA that they are going to accept.

In very gentlemanly language they have said, "If you folks in ECUSA and Canada cannot adapt your doctrine and practice of human sexuality to that of the rest of the Communion, then you have no future in the Anglican Communion, and the rest of us in the Communion are moving on!"

If ECUSA is unwilling to change, and that, from what the Camp Allen Statement says, is seemingly where we are, I really think that the most practical thing that the House of Bishops can do, and it is the most honorable thing to do, is to make the following declaration: "We are unwilling to change from the action we took at our 2003 GC, and we are no longer going to ask the rest of the Communion to compromise their strongly held convictions. Since we are not going to change, we are going to choose to go on our own path, and we wish God's blessings upon the rest of the Communion. (Of course what happens to those of us in ECUSA who will not go in this way , that is another question that will have to be resolved in the future!)

Maurice M. Benitez is the former Bishop of Texas