Some Episcopalian conservatives walked out of the U.S. church's convention on Wednesday to protest the ratification of its first openly gay bishop, a sign of the fractures forming in the global Anglican denomination.

"This church will never be the same," the Rev. Kendall Harmon, a conservative, said before leading dozens of delegates out of the convention center for a period of fasting and prayer at a nearby Lutheran church.

"Some will be leaving the convention and going home, some will stay off the floor for a period of fasting and prayer and others will return (to the convention) duty-bound" to have their voices heard, said Harmon, editor of the Anglican Digest, a church publication.

Bishop-elect Rev. V. Gene Robinson of the New Hampshire diocese said in an interview Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2003 in Minneapolis, that he hopes his confirmation as the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church will not divide the church. Robinson was confirmed by the House of Bishops Tuesday.  [AP]

New Hampshire Bishop-elect Gene Robinson, cleared by church leaders on Tuesday of allegations of sexual misconduct and approved by 62 of the 107 bishops, said he prayed his appointment would not lead to a church rupture.

"Any time anyone decides to leave the church it's a very sad thing. I certainly have been praying and will be praying every day that such a thing does not happen. And indeed I don't think it needs to happen," Robinson told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Several conservatives said Robinson's approval was tantamount to recognition of non-celibate, same-sex relationships by the church, contradicting a 1998 Anglican resolution that called homosexual sex "incompatible with scripture."

SAME-SEX UNIONS

The U.S. church edged closer on Wednesday to full acceptance of homosexual relationships when the bishops, by voice vote, approved a resolution that recognized that blessings of same-sex unions were already taking place at the local parish level with the approval of some bishops.

The measure will be taken up by the church's House of Delegates during the remaining two days of the convention.

Originally, liberals hoped to create a liturgy sanctioning such blessings, but the bishops passed a toned-down version that stopped short of being a national directive.

Conservatives chafed at the latest measure, while liberals were triumphant.

"The bishops now have the right to develop their own pastoral practices," said the Rev. Michael Hopkins, head of Integrity, a gay support group. "We have a significant move forward in this church toward the honoring of gay and lesbian (relationships)."

Harmon criticized the resolution as ambiguous.

"Let's say what we're going to do and what we're really talking about and vote on it," he said.

Bishops who opposed Robinson's ordination appealed to the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, as well as conservative Anglican leaders in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, for "godly direction and emergency intervention."

That presented Williams, the nominal leader of the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, with one of the biggest crises of his eight-month tenure.

In a statement from London, he said: "Difficult days lie ahead for the Anglican Church after the decision. ... (Robinson's appointment) will inevitably have a significant impact on the Anglican Communion throughout the world and it is too early to say what the result of that will be."

Church liberals have questioned the threats of a schism, noting conservatives failed to follow through after objecting to the mid-1970s decision to ordain women.

The Most Rev. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church, who voted in favor of Robinson's ordination, said he believed that "different points of view can be held ... without the issue of sexuality becoming church dividing."

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