The Rev. Carl Metzger of the Church of St. Alban in Philadelphia said the prospects of an apology for consecrating Robinson are almost non-existent.

"I don't think they'll go that far," he said. They may express regret "for the division it has caused." He further suggested that the bishops would be united in their refusal to apologize.

In effect, most observers expect the Episcopalian leaders to defend Robinson's consecration as bishop. Of course, that defense will be couched in exquisitely diplomatic language, full of sympathy and open-mindedness, but it will be a defense nonetheless, say Episcopalians and observers outside the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church, a small, wealthy and increasingly independent part of the Protestant denomination.

Indeed, the upshot of the Salt Lake City meeting will be the ecclesiastical equivalent of a rebuke to bishops from Africa, Latin America and tsunami-stricken regions of the Indian Ocean, where Anglican leaders both represent the overwhelming majority of the church's membership and have pleaded with their U.S. colleagues, firstly, to not consecrate Robinson; and, secondly, to back down from what they see as both unprecedented and unilateral.

Come Friday, these bishops and their parishioners will not be satisfied.

"(U.S. bishops) are being asked to express regret. Are they going to express regret for the hurt caused in addition to that which caused the hurt, the consecration of Gene Robinson or are they only going to express regret for the hurt caused?" asked the Rev. Mark Ainsworth, pastor of All Hallows Episcopal Church in Wyncote, Pa., a growing congregation near Philadelphia. "I suspect that the primates of Africa and Asia are going to look for two expressions, not one. They are most looking for an expression of that which caused the regret."

The precise reason for this week's meeting of Episcopal Church leaders is the need to respond formally to something known as the Windsor Report, a document completed last September after it became clear that Robinson's consecration threatened to split the church.

Shortly after Robinson was made a bishop, global leaders were impaneled by their nominal head, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to find ways to mediate between the church's Third World majority and the Episcopal Church, which is supported by bishops from British Commonwealth nations such as Canada, Britain and Australia, where same-sex unions and the ordination of practicing homosexuals is more acceptable.

That panel's work was completed last fall and released in October. It called on the Episcopal Church to apologize for consecrating Robinson, to stop ordaining active homosexuals and to refrain from creating "blessing rites" for same-sex unions. It also called on Third World bishops to stop offering alternative pastoral oversight to Episcopalians aggrieved by their leadership's sexual agenda.

This week's meeting in Salt Lake City will finalize the Episcopalian Church's response to the Windsor Report's recommendations and prepare the way for Griswold and his U.S. contingent of bishops to travel next month to Ireland, where they will defend their same-sex theology and practice -- even at the risk of ejection from their 460-year-old church home.

Last week one Episcopalian bishop, whose theology reflects his Anglican heritage and biblical training, wrote his colleagues a letter that betrays his own sense of just how inevitable his church's leftward direction has become and just how toxic more equivocating about that leftward direction will be.

"In all honesty, I confess that an unclear or ambiguous response would be a pastoral disaster for me and I believe, for many others in our beloved Church," Bishop John Howe of the Central Florida Diocese wrote to his fellow bishops. "Even worse would be for us to create the perception that we are dodging the (Windsor) Report altogether or trying to 'buy time' by employing delaying tactics."

Against all odds, Howe appealed to his fellow bishops to do several things, including:

-- "Express our regret ... for having so damaged the Communion;

-- "Agree to a moratorium on same sex-blessings and the consecration of non-celibate homosexual persons until or unless a 'new consensus' emerges in the Communion that such actions are seen as legitimate in the light of Scripture and Christian tradition;

-- "Ask those among us who believe such actions are legitimate to "make their case" to the rest of the Communion; and

-- "Ask those of us who participated in the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire to refrain from representing the Anglican Communion in international and ecumenical gatherings ... "

Longer term, parish priests wonder how the rationale behind the Utah meeting's expected defense of ordaining practicing homosexuals translates practically to people in the pews.

"The difficulty now for the House of Bishops is how they hold together two things: international responsibility, which many of them believe in, and the autonomous individual as the most significant ethical unit, whose preferences must be allowed expression to the fullest extent provided they do not harm others in ways decided by the legal system," said Ainsworth.

"While many of the bishops oppose, for example, the Iraq War because of the seeming lack of international consensus, they find themselves clearly outside the international consensus on same-sex issues."

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