NAIROBI: AFRICAN CHURCHES REFUSE FUNDING OVER GAY ISSUE

By TOM MALITI

The Associated Press

4/15/2004

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Anglican archbishops from Africa resolved Thursday to reject donations from any diocese that recognizes gay clergy and recommended giving the Episcopal Church in the United States three months to repent for ordaining an openly gay bishop.

The archbishops also said they will refuse cooperation with any missionary who supports ordaining gay priests. They said the Episcopalians — the American branch of Anglicanism — should be disciplined for the election last year of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. Robinson has lived openly with his male partner for years.

"If we suffer for a while to gain our independence and our freedom and to build ourselves up, I think it will be a good thing for the church in Africa," Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria told journalists. "And we will not, on the altar of money, mortgage our conscience, mortgage our faith, mortgage our salvation."

He spoke at a meeting of African Anglican archbishops and their counterparts from Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. The other regions planned to issue a statement Friday.

Akinola is also chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, which represents 12 national and regional churches plus the diocese of Egypt.

Robinson's election has created deep divisions within the worldwide Anglican Communion, a confederation of provinces that each govern themselves. All Anglican provinces in Africa — except for Southern Africa — have opposed ordaining homosexuals, and several have severed ties with the U.S. Diocese of New Hampshire.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, has appointed a commission to explore ways of holding the communion together, or perhaps managing a split.

The financial impact of the African bishops' stance is unclear.

American church officials have said that overseas Anglican leaders who had publicly denounced the U.S. denomination over Robinson's election last year have continued taking aid money from them.

Also, a significant amount of those grants come from Episcopal foundations that are independent of American dioceses and national church headquarters.

"It's hard to parse this statement and to figure out are there any loopholes here or what," said Jim Naughton, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington.

But Canon Bill Atwood, director of Ekklesia Society, an international aid agency created by U.S. Episcopal conservatives, said the African bishops have shown that they will break ties with the U.S. church no matter the cost.

"Western leaders, especially in the Episcopal Church, have miscalculated," said Atwood, who was in Nairobi.

A spokesman for the national U.S. church did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Africans comprise about half of the members of the global Anglican communion. The African churches are the fastest-growing in the world.

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