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'Secret gay meeting' for Archbishop
18 Sept
2007- UK- The Archbishop of Canterbury is to meet in secret with homosexual
members of the Church of England, a newspaper has claimed.
According to the Times, Dr Rowan Williams will hold a secret Eucharist with gay
and lesbian members of his church at St Peter's in London's affluent Belgravia.
The newspaper reports that he will deliver a speech titled "Present realities
and future possibilities for lesbians and gay men in the Church" in an attempt
to repair the schism on the issue of homosexuality.
"It should come as no surprise that the archbishop is meeting pastorally with
clergy and others affected by the current debates in the Church," a spokesperson
for Dr Williams said.
"Such encounters extend right across the range of opinions within the Church."
The Times reports that the meeting will take place under strict confidentiality
rules, a move which has attracted criticism from some lobby groups.
"We are astonished at the attempts to make the meeting clandestine when it would
be far better to have this in the open," Reverend Richard Kirker of the Lesbian
and Gay Christian Movement told the newspaper.
"The fact that he wants to go there without anyone knowing he's going there
makes it quite clear that he has an attitude towards the event that he doesn’t
have at any other meetings."
But Dr Williams' spokesperson added: "Few of these encounters ever reach the
public domain. That is as it should be.
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