Anglican bishops set for conference

The 650 bishops will begin a three-day retreat on Thursday, a period of prayer and reflection, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, before the business of the conference gets under way on July 21.

Participants will discuss subjects including the Church's mission and evangelisation, human sexuality, social justice and issues such as the environment and violence against women.

The Anglican Covenant, a key document on the way forward for the Church following the consecration of the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire in the US and an openly gay man, will also be debated.

The bishops will break off deliberations on July 24 to join other faith leaders for a mass walk through central London to highlight the United Nations Millennium Development Goals on world poverty.

The event, at the University of Kent in Canterbury, is likely to be overshadowed by the presence on its fringes of Bishop Robinson, who is the first Anglican bishop to openly live in a gay partnership.

He was not invited to the conference by Dr Williams because of the controversy over his appointment.

But the decision to bar him has failed to prevent a boycott of up to a quarter of the bishops invited, who object to the presence of US bishops responsible for his consecration.

Many of the bishops taking part in the boycott attended the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) in Jerusalem last month, a grouping opposed to liberalisation of Church teaching on issues such as homosexuality.

The grouping, dubbed a "church within a church", claims to represent about half of the 80 million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion.