Episcopal turmoil is test of Anglican faith
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

When the Rev. William White pulled his parish at Second and Market Streets out of the Church of England, he chose an auspicious day: July 4, 1776.

With that, White and his stately brick Christ Church - where George Washington, Ben Franklin and James Madison worshiped in Philadelphia - formed a brand-new American denomination.

But the same challenge to tradition that created the Episcopal Church in 18th-century America, and compelled it to embrace women's rights and gay rights in the 20th, now threatens to fracture it - and split worldwide Anglicanism as well.

"We're in the midst of a vast reformation of the Christian Church in the West," Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, a church conservative, said Friday.

Fellow conservative Bishop Peter H. Beckwith of Springfield, Ill., goes much further. In a recent pastoral letter, he said the church was "in meltdown." the rest