Anglican Church's dispute over direction continues: conservatives call for restructuring. So the Archbishop of Canterbury should no longer be the head of the 80 million church members.
This was demanded by the Archbishop of Kenya, Eliud Wabukala, according to a report by the BBC radio station on Friday. For years, a dispute has been smoldering within the church, which has about 80 million members worldwide. The ie is how to deal with homosexual ministers and believers, and whether women should be ordained as bishops in the future.
Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen told the BBC the call to oust the Archbishop of Canterbury stems from dissatisfaction over the past decade. The Bishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is considered liberal and has announced his resignation at the end of the year. A successor has not yet been chosen. Jensen said the Anglican Church could also be organized like the Commonwealth confederation of states.
Church threatens split
The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans group met for the first time after boycotting an official summit of Anglicans in 2008 in protest of the presence of representatives of the U.S. Episcopal Church. The latter had consecrated the first openly gay Anglican bishop. By its own account, the group represents about 15 million Anglicans worldwide.
Conflict over how to deal with homosexual ministers and believers has led some bishops within the universal Anglican Church to stop talking to each other. The church is therefore threatened with schism. The harshest critics of the ordination of homosexuals come mainly from African churches. The openly homosexual US bishop Gene Robinson, who belongs to the Anglican Communion, was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. The move was one of the triggers of the crisis.