Carey warns of fractured Anglican Communion

HONG KONG—The outgoing leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion warned that defiant actions by individual dioceses threaten to split the global church into two or more separate bodies

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, speaking to an Anglican congress in Hong Kong, lashed out at both conservative and liberals who “seem to be making such decisions without regard to the rest of us.”

“This erosion of communion through the adoption of ‘local options’ has been going on for some 30 years but in my opinion is reaching crisis proportions today,” Carey said in his last address as the president of the Anglican Consultative Council.

The 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the 70 million-member Anglican Communion. Carey does not have direct oversight of the U.S. church but is considered spiritual head of the global church.