DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — The Episcopal Church in America has appeased a top Anglican panel by halting the election of gay bishops and apologizing for any rifts it caused, according to a report released at a key meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania. And though the American church has not officially condoned same-sex unions, it has not taken any action to forbid them, making it difficult "to discern exactly where the Episcopal Church stands on this issue," the report says.
As primates — or head bishops — of the Anglican Communion’s 38 national and regional provinces gathered in Africa Feb. 14–19, the report seemed to offer hope that the world’s third-largest Christian body can stave off schism. Calls for schism have been growing ever louder since the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003. The report, issued Feb. 15 by a panel that included Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of global Anglicanism, is part of an attempt to reconcile theological differences in the Anglican Communion.
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