Bill's Comment Page

At last, some common sense from a senior Anglican on the issue of homosexuality

In an interview with the Guardian, one of Africa's most senior churchmen denounces the arrogance and intolerance of some of his fellow clergymen over homosexuality, the issue that threatens to split the worldwide Anglican communion.

In the interview, the Most Reverend Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane, Archbishop of Cape Town and Primate of Southern Africa, implicitly criticised his colleagues for undermining the 70 million strong communion with their denunciations of the election in the US of an openly gay bishop. Archbishop Ndungane said: "There is an attempt to divert us from the major life and death issues in the world. There is a woman waiting to be stoned to death for adultery in Nigeria and yet we are not hearing any fuss from the leadership of the church there about that. People are going hungry across the world, the Israelis are building a fence around the Palestinians, HIV/Aids is a global emergency... these are major, urgent, issues which should be a priority for the Church and we must not lose our focus on that."

He went on to say "The Episcopal church is an autonomous province with its own procedures and processes which determine its own decisions. It is full of good people and they have followed one of the most transparent and democratic processes of decision-making in the whole Anglican communion. It is very arrogant to assume that the people in America do not know what they are doing. We have got to respect their decision.”

His final comments seem specially sensible and appropriate: "Our church must learn how to live together as a diverse community.”