The Traditional Anglican Communion's worldwide primate, Archbishop John Hepworth, hopes the group's College of Bishops will approve the plan at a possible Rome Synod in February 2006.

The church's members are so far reported to be unanimous in their desire for full communion. If formally agreed, the proposal would then be presented to Vatican officials.

"We recognise, of course, the need for fair and equal treatment before the law for all people," he said. However, Christians need to be very concerned indeed at the assertion of moral equivalence between marriage and civil partnerships. They are not of equal moral standing.

He added that Christians have a unique role to teach others about the sanctity of the traditional family.

Clergy were advised against conducting formal blessings of civil partnerships to avoid equating them with marriage.

In the guidelines, condemned by evangelical Anglican Communion archbishops from the Global South as giving the appearance of “evil”, the bishops said that clergy could enter into partnerships, but only if they would abide by Church teaching that sex should be confined to heterosexual marriage.

One or two of us took a deep breath at this, for it was a rare instance in our lifetimes of the Church of England actually standing up for something, and actually being right. It was also shocking, however, that in a country with an established Christian church, and whose Muslim population (for example) is only around three per cent, such an exhortation should be felt necessary.