Email to Friend
UGANDA: Anglican church warns on homosexuality
"I think this signals the finishing of the Anglican Communion. We [in the Global South] will not be able to walk with the Americans," Bishop Nelson Onono-Onweng of the Northern Uganda diocese told Ecumenical News International on Dec. 9 from Gulu.
The Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool, an openly lesbian priest who lives with a partner, was elected Dec. 5 to be a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles. The denomination's diocesan bishops and standing committees still have to confirm her election.
The Episcopal Church is the U.S.-based province of the 77-million-member Anglican Communion. Disagreement has roiled the Anglican Communion since the Episcopal Church elected and consecrated Gene Robinson, who lives with a long-time male partner, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.
"We thought they would not do it again, after Robinson's consecration caused so much trouble in the communion," said Bishop Onono-Onweng.
Many Anglicans, particularly in the Global South where their numbers are growing rapidly, reject homosexuality as contrary to Scripture.
On Dec. 8, Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper quoted the Rev. Alison Barfoot, an assistant to Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, the head of the Ugandan Anglican church, as describing Glasspool's election as "unbiblical."
Barfoot said, "We believe the Bible condemns homosexual behavior as immoral. So, how can a homosexual be a bishop?"
The comments of the Ugandan church leaders came amidst a separate controversy about a draft law on homosexuality that is before the country's parliament.
The law, if it came into force, would prescribe life imprisonment for homosexuals and even, in some cases, the death penalty. Media reports suggest, however, that the provision on the death penalty may be dropped.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was quoted as describing the draft law as being of "shocking severity," in an interview published by Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper on Dec. 12.
"I cannot see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the communion has said in recent decades," said Williams, who has faced criticism for not speaking out publicly at an earlier stage against the proposed measure.
The Lambeth Conference of the world's Anglican bishops in 1998 described homosexual practice as being "incompatible with Scripture" but also condemned homophobia and "any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."
Onono-Onweng in his interview with ENI said he did not wish to comment on the draft law until he had more time to study it.
The Daily Monitor also quoted Joshua Kitakule, an Anglican who is the general secretary of the Uganda Interreligious Council, as describing the draft law as, "Okay but it has been misunderstood; we need to educate the people about it."
Kitakule was speaking after a meeting of about 200 Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Seventh Day Adventist and Muslim leaders in Kampala on Dec. 9.
This group of religious leaders had urged the government not to "yield to pressure" from donor countries that are demanding the withdrawal of the proposed law.
» Respond to this articleSearch
