A slender lifeline was offered to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his attempt to keep the worldwide Anglican communion intact, when Episcopal bishops pledged at a meeting in New Orleans yesterday to maintain a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops.While the statement may satisfy parts of the Anglican communion, and just be enough for the archbishop to sell to other church provinces, it was dismissed by conservative evangelicals as inadequate.
The US bishops removed references to the moratorium policy only enduring until their next decision-making general convention in two years' time, but there was no suggestion that the moratorium would be permanent.
One evangelical archbishop who has led calls for the American church to be disciplined said the decision was "sticking two big fingers to the communion".
The Archbishop of Canterbury himself was in the Middle East last night and unable to respond immediately.
Representatives of the worldwide Anglican Consultative Council who had attended the meeting had also left before the statement was announced.
Canon Gregory Cameron, the communion's senior negotiator, said: "It has become clear to me there is a wider range of opinion in the American house of bishops than there is in the communion as a whole."
The 150 bishops were given a deadline of the end of this month to come up with a response or face possible expulsion, or at least marginalisation from the rest of world Anglicanism, although Dr Williams insisted last week - possibly because he knew there was little chance of an unequivocal reply - that there was no ultimatum.
The eight point plan, endorsed almost unanimously, promised no consent for any more gay bishops, no public blessings, and the adoption of a plan for Episcopal visitors to conservative parishes which cannot accept their liberal bishops.
The crisis which has convulsed world Anglicanism over the last four years and has led to demands, particularly from African church leaders, that the 2.2million-strong US church should be excluded from the rest of the communion, was sparked by the Episcopalians' decision to endorse the election of the church's first openly gay bishop, the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire in 2003.
The statement also condemned incursions into US dioceses by African archbishops claiming to provide help to dissident parishes, and said it wished to explore with Dr Williams the possibility of Bishop Robinson being invited to next year's conference of all the world's Anglican bishops.
It added: "We call for unequivocal and active commitment to the civil rights, safety and dignity of gay and lesbian persons." The battle, in which conservative Episcopalians anxious to wrest control over their church away from its traditionally-liberal leadership have made common cause with developing world leaders, has become both vicious and abusive.
Yesterday, the bishops haggled over their response, building on and amending a long portfolio resolution they hope will satisfy at least moderate archbishops across the rest of the church.
Bishop J Jon Bruno, of Los Angeles, told journalists: "I do not believe we'll ever turn back the clock. Are we going to withdraw support for gays and lesbians in the church? No. They are fully enfranchised members of our body."
A few conservative bishops who withdrew from the meeting early are likely to seek membership of an Anglican province outside the US, probably the tiny province of the Southern Cone, covering most of South America, which has only 20,000 members and an English presiding archbishop, Gregory Venables, who never rose above the status of curate in England.
One bishop, the Rt Rev Jeffrey Steenson of the Rio Grande diocese, centred on Albuquerque, has also announced he will leave, though to join the Roman Catholic church.
One moderate conservative bishop, the Rt Rev John Howe of Central Florida, who intends to stay, told the meeting: "We are deeply, tragically, horribly stuck, not only the Episcopal church but the Anglican communion as a whole."
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