V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette Episcopal Bishop Robert W. Duncan -- "We're at a time for Anglicanism where the question is whether it can be coherent as a global movement." Click photo for larger image. Related story: Rector criticizes church's prevailing conservativism as 'uncharitable ... misguided ...wrong'

Amid a deepening rift over the role of homosexuals in their church, Episcopalians in the Pittsburgh Diocese yesterday received a firsthand report on a conference in Africa in which their bishop played a key part.

Bishop Robert W. Duncan, leader of the conservative faction of American bishops who have opposed both the ordination of gays and the church's blessing of same-sex unions, gave a 90-minute briefing at St. Martin's Church in Monroeville.

The fight, triggered by the consecration four years ago of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, has threatened to split the American church and possibly trigger the departure of some of its members from the worldwide Anglican Communion, which links various churches that sprang from the Church of England.

"We're at a time for Anglicanism where the question is whether it can be coherent as a global movement," said Bishop Duncan. He was among a group known as the Anglican Community Network at odds with the leaders of the Episcopal Church who approved the consecration of Bishop Robinson.

Bishop Duncan led a delegation of the network to a meeting of church leaders in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, earlier this month where they successfully pushed for a church declaration setting a deadline of Sept. 30 for the American bishops to state unequivocally that they will not approve same-sex unions or consecrate any gays as bishops.

The lone spark of drama during yesterday's briefing came at the end of a question-and-answer session when Sue Boulden, a member of Integrity, a support group for gays in the church, suggested that Bishop Duncan's group was indirectly abetting the abuse of gays in developing nations, notably Nigeria.

Nigeria's Anglican Primate, the Rev. Peter Akinola, a member of the conservative network, has endorsed a pending bill that would criminalize homosexuality and allow for penalties of up to 14 years in prison.

"It seems to me the meeting has accomplished what the conservative movement wants to do, which is throw my people -- the gays and lesbians of the world -- under the bus again," Mrs. Boulden said.

The remark, which drew some gasps, received a quiet reply from Bishop Duncan that "orientation is not the issue. Activity is," and that he opposes the oppression of gays.

The church leaders who met in Tanzania also set up a special council and vicar to oversee conservative American dioceses that have rebelled over the issue of gays, and some of whom have said it is impossible for them to answer to Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, whom they view as too liberal.

The Anglican communion encompasses the bulk of the national churches that grew out of the Church of England, which was founded in the 14th Century. Churches within the communion often reflect their own national character, while adhering to a set of basic principles.

The battle over gays in the church has also raised the wider question of the church's overall direction and governance and raised some questions about whether Episcopalians, or a faction of them, might split from the Anglicans.

Bishop Duncan, in an interview after his briefing, suggested that the majority in the American church "is seeing a kind of innovating morality and playing down of Scriptures and raising up of human authority" in deciding matters of conscience.

That group, he said, will decide "whether they're going to walk away from Anglicanism, which the primates meeting really says if that's where the conscience leads them that's where they need to go, but it's not where worldwide Anglicanism's going to go."

Tensions with church conservatives intensified last year when Bishop Jefferts Schori was appointed as the first female to head the denomination.

As the battle over the role of gays widened within the Episcopal Church in the U.S., congregations and leaders have filed as many as 26 lawsuits as some dioceses fell into disagreement between their bishops and their members.