Archbishop Ndungane Calls for Acceptance of Gay Episcopal Cleric

"I've got great confidence that in spite of our differences, that within our diversity, the vast majority of Anglicans and Episcopalians want to get on with work," Ndungane said. "They want to make a difference in other people's lives, want to be true to the ethos of Anglicanism -- which is living with the difference in others."

Archbishop Challenges the Church
by Jason Kane [Washington Post]

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Twelve years ago, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu successfully fought for the end of legalized racism in apartheid South Africa. Now, his successor, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, has turned his sights on his own church and says the time has come to abandon its "practices of discrimination."

Ever since the 2003 consecration of openly gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, Ndungane has made himself an anomaly in Africa by raising a liberal voice on a continent where Robinson and the American church have been loudly condemned.

"The Anglican Communion should be on the forefront of fighting social ills and not bothering about what Gene Robinson may be doing or not doing," Ndungane said in an interview here. "He has been elected by his people and the people are comfortable with that."

Calling homosexuality a "pastoral, secondary problem," the archbishop of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa estimates that 70 percent of the world's 77 million Anglicans have grown tired of discussing the divisive topic and wish to return to the "life and death issues of this world."

Included in Ndungane's fundamental issues are alleviation of severe poverty, the HIV-AIDS epidemic and educational inequalities.

Read it all here

© 2006 The Washington Post Company