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Archbishop fears gay divide
21 August 2006-London- The
Archbishop of Canterbury warned yesterday that the Church of England
could be torn apart by legal battles over property if he fails to
prevent Anglicanism splitting over gays.
Dr Rowan Williams said that his "nightmare" was that the worldwide
Church could disintegrate into rival groups within a decade, with each
demanding a share of the Church's wealth in costly court actions. He
painted a bleak picture in which there were four competing Anglican
churches on one street.
"That would take so much energy from what we're meant to be doing," he
said in an interview with Nederlands Dagblad, an evangelical newspaper
in Holland. advertisement
The Archbishop will host a summit next month with the liberal leadership
of the American branch of Anglicanism and conservative American bishops.
Dr Williams hopes to stop the conservative Americans from breaking away
over the liberal policies of the American Episcopal Church and
precipitating schism. The dispute goes back to the consecration of
Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop in 2003.
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