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Gay row stalls confirmation of Malawi Anglican bishop-elect
Blantyre, Malawi, 09/04 - Hearings to confirm a liberal British vicar as bishop of an Anglican diocese in Malawi, scheduled for Saturday, has been suspended indefinitely following controversy over his alleged gay connections, a senior Anglican cleric said.
"Yes, there are no confirmation hearings here today as scheduled until we resolve this issue," Archbishop Bernard Malango, head of the Anglican Church in Central Africa, told PANA.
Nicholas Henderson was elected 29 July to serve as bishop of the Diocese of Lake Malawi, but his election has stoked a controversy amid allegations that supports gay rights or could be gay himself.
Malango, one of African Anglican primates vehemently opposed to the appointment of an American gay cleric, Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, and the Canadian communion's decision to bless same-sex marriages, said he had written the British vicar to clarify his sexual status.
Malango's letter to Henderson published in Malawi's leading Weekend Nation paper, and on a British website VirtueOnline, said allegations had compelled him "to ask you a very awkward question."
"It has been reported that you currently live with (or have in the past lived with) a male lodger," Malango said. "Are you prepared to assure me, the members and leaders of the Church that your conduct conforms to the historic teachings of the Church that sexual intimacy is restricted to be within the marriage of one man and one woman intended as a life-long union...?"
Malango, who heads the Anglican Church in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, said although he had not received a response from Henderson, the "wrangle has caused me so much pain."
When Henderson was proposed as bishop-elect of the Diocese of Lake Malawi, conservative members of the Diocese hired a lawyer to launch a "canonical challenge" in the Church's Provincial Court.
Henderson, vicar of All Saints Parishes in Ealing and St. Martins, is alleged to be an active member of a group calling itself Modern Churchpeople Union (MCU), which advocates interests of gay people among other revolutionary ideas.
But Malawi is largely a conservative society where homosexual issues are viewed as alien, with the Anglican community the second largest Church in the country after the Catholic Church.
Henderson, already reported to be taking lessons in Chichewa - Malawi's lingua franca, is scheduled to be consecrated bishop 29 October.
Malango could not confirm if the consecration or the date would still hold.
http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=371539
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