Homosexuality Protest: Ntagali Walks Out of Canterbury Meeting

Archbishop of Church of Uganda Rev. Stanley Ntagali on Wednesday walked of meeting of world Anglican leaders in Canterbury, England over the homosexuality issue.

The rifts over homosexuality blew wide open in church in 2003 when the Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the United States, consecrated the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire.

It is this decision that the conservative church leaders including Ntagali have been fighting.

In a press statement released yesterday Ntagali said he was concerned that the process set up for the meeting would not permit them address the unfinished business from the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam.

“On the second day of the gathering, I moved a resolution that asked the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada to voluntarily withdraw from the meeting and other Anglican Communion activities until they repented of their decisions that have torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level. They would not agree to this request nor did it appear that the Archbishop of Canterbury and his facilitators would ensure that this matter be substantively addressed in a timely manner,” he said.

Adding; “In accordance with the resolution of our Provincial Assembly, it was, therefore, necessary for me to withdraw from the meeting, which I did at the end of the second day. It seemed that I was being manipulated into participating in a long meeting with the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada without the necessary discipline being upheld. My conscience is at peace.”

Ntagali sounded warnings last week that that he and many other conservative archbishops would walk out of the gathering “if godly order is not restored.”

Over a series of world meetings, leaders of the national churches, called primates, have debated whether they should remain one world fellowship given their differences.

In 2009, Anglican national leaders in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and other church provinces helped create the Anglican Church in North America, as a conservative alternative to the U.S. Episcopal Church