The Vancouver-area diocese of New Westminster set off a storm within the Canadian church by accepting a vote in 2002 to allow its churches to bless same-sex unions. The vote had passed three times.

The commission, headed by Irish Archbishop Robert Eames, said it regretted the church took these actions "without attaching sufficient importance to the interests of the wider communion."

They said that the onus was on the liberals to "move beyond informal expressions of regret for the effect of their actions to a genuine change of heart and mind".

Their statement, issued after a meeting in Lagos, also said that the liberals must halt the blessing of same-sex "marriages" and rule out future consecrations of homosexuals.

Failure to do so, they warned, would indicate that the liberals "have chosen to 'walk alone' and follow another religion".

Father Douglas Skoyles, who retired from St. John the Evangelist Church in Inglewood at the end of August, has now formally notified Calgary's Anglican Bishop Barry Hollowell that he is withdrawing from the Anglican Diocese of Calgary and (by extension) the Anglican Church of Canada.

In his first public comment on the report, Dr Jensen says "it is a document that stands for peace in times that are filled with turbulence. I admire the way in which it has resisted all calls for expulsion, disciplines and headbanging. With regret, however, I think that it is bound to fail."