Episcopal congregations seeking spiritual shelter in Africa
By SHASHANK BENGALI
McClatchy Newspapers

KAMPALA, Uganda — Angry over their U.S. church's position on homosexuality, a growing number of Episcopal congregations are seeking spiritual shelter thousands of miles away, in the Anglican churches of Africa.

In the Episcopal Church, priests have blessed same-sex marriages and one of the church's bishops is gay. In recent years, dozens of conservative congregations have left the U.S. church and joined Anglican dioceses in Uganda, Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa.

The African churches are big, fast-growing, fervently evangelical and dedicated to conservative social values - including zero tolerance for homosexuality, which nearly all African countries outlaw and which church leaders here believe that the Bible forbids. the rest