The Superior Church Tribunal of the IEAB unanimously ruled that Cavalcanti was guilty of the charges against him. The IEAB decision means that all canonic, sacramental, pastoral and liturgical ties for the Bishop cease and he also loses the rights and prerogatives of ministry in the Church.

The Chamber of Bishops held an extraordinary meeting in Porto Alegre June 10. However, the decision to strip the Bishop of Recife of his ministerial functions was not made public until June 17. The IEAB Ecclesiastic Tribunal considered that Robinson Cavalcanti had broken the Church's Canon Law when he failed to fulfill vows made at his ordination.

He was accused of proclaiming the autonomy of the diocese of Recife, under his pastoral responsibility and he even filed a civil suit against the IEAB to preserve his rights to remain in charge of the diocese "without the Provincial of Brazil having taking any initiative to remove those rights."

The suit, according to a note from the primate bishop was judged inadmissible by the courts, according to a sentence dated April 15. Robinson Cavalcanti also wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams and the primate bishops requesting that the diocese of Recife be separated from the Brazilian province.

The Bishop of Recife was accused of holding a diocesan council at the end of 2004, disregarding a prohibition on the part of the primate bishop and for attitudes of serious indiscipline for not responding to convocations from the Province and for the public use of offensive language against Orlando Santos de Oliveira and the Chamber of Bishops.

Robinson told ALC that the Diocesan Council of the Diocese of Recife confirmed him in his position, despite the primate's decision. The conviction was foreseeable he said because the IEAB is controlled by old liberals from the Church itself and by new liberals who come from the Evangelical movement, aligned with the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA).

The conflict between Cavalcanti, the IEAB and the bishop primate dates back to Cavalcanti's participation in a service to confirm 110 young people held in 2003 in the Orthodox Church of Ohio by five retired Anglican bishops without the consent of the local diocesan bishop.

The celebration was requested by the young people who did not agree with the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, a declared homosexual, by ECUSA. Cavalcanti participated in the Ohio celebration without the consent of IEAB leadership.

Bishop Cavalcanti believes that the entire process against him is "political and personal." He said that he leadership of the Province avoided the debate about human sexuality, that the diocese of Recife has solidarity from a good part of the international Anglican communion and that he is accompanied in the diocese by 40 pastors from 35 Churches.

Latin American and Caribbean Communication Agency (ALC)