"I hope that by your election victory, these ordained men and women will feel rebuked and be forced to repent of this grievous sin of repudiating the word of God, and to seek genuine restoration," he added.

Akinola has become the most outspoken critic within the Anglican church of moves in some north American and British dioceses to tolerate gay priests and bishops and to conduct marriage-like blessings of same-sex partnerships.

Our President has consistently named his religious faith as the guiding force of his decisions, and our nation proclaims in the "Pledge of Allegiance" that we are one nation "under God." Such obedience to God obliges us to look always to the well-being of a world broken and bleeding, which God loves so much that he came among us in the person of Jesus to reconcile to himself and to save.

The report pleads for harmony. It says: “This world will one day pass away and the ecclesiastical structures on which we expend so much time and energy, important though they are, will pass away with it.

“In the light of this fact, we need to give the highest priority to deepening the quality of our love for the other members of the body of Christ, perhaps especially those with whom we most strongly disagree on issues such as the ordination of women to the episcopate.”

The Vancouver-area diocese of New Westminster set off a storm within the Canadian church by accepting a vote in 2002 to allow its churches to bless same-sex unions. The vote had passed three times.

The commission, headed by Irish Archbishop Robert Eames, said it regretted the church took these actions "without attaching sufficient importance to the interests of the wider communion."