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Kenya: Nzimbi to Consecrate Two American Priests
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
14 August 2007
Posted to the web 13 August 2007
Alex Ndegwa And Reuters
Nairobi
Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi will consecrate two American priests fleeing the liberal US church over a gay clergy crisis.
Nzimbi will consecrate Bill Atwood and Bill Murdoch on August 30, as assistant bishops in the province of Kenya.
This latest move will create more conservative African outposts amid the liberal American mainstream, which sparked off the divisions by its consecration of gay bishops.
"We are not undermining anybody's authority. We are saving a situation of people who so much need us," Nzimbi told Reuters in response to criticism that African bishops were violating church rules.
Ugandan Archbishop, Mr Henry Orombi, also supported the decision.
"In Uganda, we have provided a home for refugees from Congo, Rwanda and Sudan," said Orombi, who is consecrating John Guernsey of Virginia on September 2. "Now, we are also providing a home for ecclesiastical refugees from America," he added.
Africans who take a tough line on homosexuality are keen to recruit the dissident priests as bishops under their own authority and to provide a new spiritual home for their clusters of wealthy US congregations.
The Church of Rwanda started adopting conservative US congregations in 2000 as part of its missionary outreach.
Its Anglican mission to the America's group says it began with seven churches and now has 116, all under Rwandan authority.
Outspoken Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, caused a storm in May when he consecrated dissident Episcopal priest Martyn Minns as bishop of a new Nigerian church in the US.
The 77-million-strong Anglican Church has been divided since 2003 when its 2.4-million-member US branch consecrated Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in its history.
Conservatives say the US church has disobeyed biblical commands and broken with Anglican teaching by backing gay priests, while liberals support a looser interpretation of scripture and say Anglicanism has always embraced diversity.
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The Africans say they want to rescue US churches and individuals who might otherwise abandon Anglicanism.
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