Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, makes unity plea Times Online

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has admitted the coming Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church's bishops from around the world may well be a "painful" experience for many.

But he said he hoped a "way forward" could be found in a Church facing almost inevitable schism between the liberal West and evangelical South over the issues of homosexual ordination and same-sex blessing services.

He disclosed that he has been holding private meetings with bishops from both sides on how to be "part of a shared vision."

In a letter to all the Church's 800-plus bishops, of which about a quarter will be boycotting Lambeth and attending instead the "alternative" Global Anglican Future Conference in the Middle East next month, he made it clear that he did not want the focus at Lambeth to be on the divisive issue of sexuality when there is so much in the areas of poverty, violence and injustice to be addressed in the

wider world.

"We hope that people will not come so wedded to their own agenda and their local priorities that they cannot listen to those from other cultural backgrounds," he pleaded in the letter, timed to

coincide with the Christian festival of Pentecost.

In an attempt to avoid the kind of confrontational parliamentary-style debate that has been a characteristic of previous Lambeth Conferences as well as meetings of the Church of England General Synod, the group responsible for organising the event have adopted a different style.

The two weeks at Kent University in Canterbury in July will instead see bishops split up into "indaba" groups, taken from a Zulu word for discussion among equals.

Ee  Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, makes unity plea Times Online