US: Newly-elected leader of the United States Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, said yesterday she believed homosexuality was not a sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.
Bishop Jefferts Schori, of the diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church, the US branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.
Interviewed on CNN, Bishop Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual. "I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.
"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."
Bishop Jefferts Schori's election seemed certain to exacerbate splits within an Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided over homosexuality, with several dioceses and parishes threatening to break away.
It could also widen divisions with other Anglican communities, including the Church of England, which do not allow women bishops. In the worldwide Anglican church women are bishops only in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. The Church of England does not allow women to be bishops and although there are no women bishops in the Church of Ireland, it does allow for their ordination.
Three years ago when the church last met in convention, a majority of US bishops backed the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history. The Robinson issue has been particularly criticised in Africa where the church has a growing membership and where homosexuality is often taboo.
Bishop Jefferts Schori (52), who was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialisation in squids and oysters, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. She is married to Richard Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician. They have one daughter.
Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, she said the Bible was written in a very different historical context.