Tanzania bishop breaks ranks in gay Anglican row
Source: Reuters
By George Obulutsa DAR ES SALAAM, Feb 14 (Reuters) - In the Anglican Communion's bitter row over gay priests and marriage, which threatens to split the church's 77 million faithful, Tanzanian Bishop Mdimi Mhogolo seems an unlikely rebel. In December, the conservative Anglican Church of Tanzania declared it would no longer accept funding from dioceses in the U.S. Episcopal Church that condone homosexual practices or bless same-sex unions. However, Mhogolo says it is with a clear conscience that his diocese of Central Tanganyika continues to accept money from its liberal counterpart in New York. With individual donations of $50 a year, hundreds of Americans provide shoes, clothes, food and exercise books so that AIDS orphans in the impoverished Tanzanian diocese may attend primary school. "We have no qualms about it in my diocese," Mhogolo told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a critical Anglican meeting which is set to determine the future of a church struggling with a deep split between developing world conservatives and liberals mainly in the rich West. "(If) a gay person has felt: 'I want to help an HIV orphan to go to school', and you say: 'No, I'm not going to receive that money', you are rejecting the person and you are rejecting an answer for the HIV person," Mhogolo said. More than 1,000 AIDS orphans in Mhogolo's diocese are benefiting from the Carpenter's Kids programme in a country where one in 25 people are infected by HIV. The United Nations says the number may be higher as it estimates that only one in five cases of infection are reported. Mhogolo said he opposed last year's statement by his church because it did not reflect the realities of life in the east African country where most of its 39 million population eke out a living on less than a $1 a day. African archbishops are calling on the small but powerful U.S. Episcopal Church to repent after naming an openly gay bishop in 2003, a move they condemned as violating the Scriptures. However, Mhogolo sidestepped the issue of gay clergy. "Let the judgement be done by God, not by me," he said.
| AlertNet news is provided by |  |
