Communion Will Split: "We're in trouble" says Irish Archbishop

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2487

[VirtueOnline] May 20, 2005--When the Primates met at Dromantine, Ireland earlier this year the following encounter took place that can now be reported on, but which escaped the media net at that time.

When a discussion on same-sex blessings started to heat up and finally overheat the Canadian Archbishop Andrew Hutchison rose to his feet and said that as the Canadian government was about to pass legislation making gay marriage legal it behooved the Anglican Church of Canada not to get behind on the issue and to see same sex blessings and gay marriages as a justice issue and get on board as quickly as possible.

There was a pause and he sat down. At that point the Primate from Pakistan the Rt. Rev. Dr. Alexander John Malik got to his feet and said, "Archbishop Hutchison I hope you don't mind that when we have the next Primate's meeting that I bring along my four wives. You see in my country the government has passed a law saying it is legal to have four wives. I take it you would have no objection. Clearly it is a justice issue."

According to one archbishop, that particular discussion on gay bishops collapsed. "Hutchison made a fool of himself," said a second archbishop.

Now we may never know the extent of all the conversations that took place at the Irish Catholic retreat center, but clearly it was a make or break time for the Anglican Communion particularly as the Global South Archbishops saw it.