• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

War, Mideast issues face Episcopal church votes

Posted on: Thursday, 15 June 2006, 15:20 CDT

By Michael Conlon

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - While debate over homosexuality dominates news coming from the U.S. Episcopal Church's triennial convention, matters ranging from opposition to the Iraq war to a demand that the Guantanamo prison be closed are also on the agenda.

Those and other issues are among dozens of proposed resolutions working their way through legislative-style committees.

On Thursday, one panel took up a number of disparate Middle East resolutions. One urges Israel to "end the isolation of East Jerusalem and Bethlehem from the West Bank created by the continued construction of Israeli settlements, settler roads and the (security) wall" and to remove the wall.

But another apologizes to the Jewish community for past church pronouncements that it says were "consistently unbalanced" because they portrayed Israel as an aggressor in the Mideast.

The fate of the proposals is uncertain. Many may never come before the convention's two deciding bodies -- one house of 230 bishops and a second house of more than 800 diocesan representatives.

The same process faces a package of resolutions designed to respond to the turmoil created three years ago when the church's last convention consecrated the first known openly gay bishop in 450 years of Anglican history. The proposals addressing those issued are likely to be voted on by the main decision-making houses on Saturday.

On Friday, a panel has slated testimony on a number of war-related issues, including a reaffirmation of the 2.3-million-member church's stand that the Iraq war was unjust. One proposal calls on church members to oppose and resist the war through "advocacy, protest and electoral action" and urge the U.S. Congress to end it.

That panel also has before it a measure strongly urging the United States not to make a pre-emptive military strike against Iran.

Another measure suggests the Guantanamo prison has become a "source of anger" throughout the world and should be closed, and urges Washington "to oppose the use of secret detention centers around the world, and to cease the practice of 'extraordinary rendition,' in which terror suspects are sent without judicial review to states where they may be tortured."

Another proposal urges the U.S. government to press Turkey to allow the Eastern Orthodox church to re-open its theological seminary on Halki Island for the training of Orthodox clergy and restore all properties confiscated from the Greek church in the country.

On the domestic front, there are measures being discussed that would provide for a formal apology from the church for the role its forefathers played in slavery, and to explore possible reparations.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category