Episcopalians 'stand' against gay bishop

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A council of war for conservative Episcopalians gets under way today, when 2,200 of them meet in Dallas to consider ways to protest the recent confirmation of a practicing homosexual priest as the new bishop of New Hampshire.

Episcopalians from all 50 states will meet until Thursday afternoon at the Wyndham Antole Hotel in Dallas to listen to speakers, pray and network together during a gathering labeled "A Place to Stand." Conferees include 40 bishops, 729 priests, 43 deacons, 91 seminarians and 1,219 laity.

More than 75 media credentials -- which is highly unusual for a denominational meeting that has no legislative clout -- have been issued to reporters anticipating fireworks similar to those Aug. 5 at the Episcopal General Convention in Minneapolis. That was the convention that confirmed Bishop-elect V. Gene Robinson, who lives openly with a homosexual partner, as bishop of New Hampshire.

The conference is geared to showcase conservative resistance to Bishop-elect Robinson's upcoming Nov. 2 consecration and show support for an alternative Episcopal province that could supplant or exist alongside the official Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA).

"We are seeing an incredible response for 'A Place to Stand,'" said the Rev. David Roseberry, rector of Christ Church, a Plano, Texas, congregation that helped organize the gathering. "The number of priests who have registered is equivalent to roughly 10 percent of all active clergy in ECUSA and the overall number of registrants is larger than the number of ECUSA deputies and bishops who attended General Convention."

According to media reports, many Episcopalians are either staging financial revolts against their bishops, leaving their parishes or threatening to do so unless an emergency meeting of 38 archbishops from around the Anglican Communion, meeting Oct. 15 to 17 in London, can discipline the Episcopal Church. ECUSA is the U.S. branch of the 70 million-member Anglican Communion.

Specifics of the split among Episcopalians are posted at www.cfdiocese.org, the Web site of the Diocese of Central Florida. Its bishop, the Rt. Rev. John Howe, was invited to a mid-September gathering of 11 conservative and liberal bishops at church headquarters in New York.

There, the group was given details on a "massive fallout" in the wake of the General Convention.

"Here in the Southeast, seven congregations in one of our dioceses are contemplating leaving the Episcopal Church," Bishop Howe wrote. "In another diocese, a $5 million bequest that was to go to the Episcopal Church will now be going elsewhere.