Conservative Episcopal bishop says Anglican church at crossroads
JOE MANDAK
Associated Press
Mon, Jul. 31, 2006

PITTSBURGH - The Anglican Communion is at a crucial crossroads as it waits for the worldwide church's leader to appoint an overseer for seven of its conservative U.S. dioceses, the head of one of those dioceses said Monday.

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan said if Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams does not appoint a new leader for the conservative U.S. dioceses, "any hope for a Communion-unifying solution slips away, and so does the shape and leadership of the Anglican Communion as we have known them."

Duncan's remarks came in his keynote address of the Anglican Communion Network's annual council meeting in Pittsburgh.

"Such oversight would certainly be an innovation for the Episcopal Church, since at present there is no direct overseer in those dioceses except for the diocesan bishops themselves," said Jan Nunley, a spokesman for The Episcopal Church, which is what the American church now calls itself.

"I wouldn't want to speculate on what it might mean for the Network dioceses to reject the oversight of the General Convention," Nunley said.

Duncan and the leaders of six other conservative dioceses do not want to be overseen by the new Episcopal presiding bishop, Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, elected by the General Convention. the rest