JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- It remains to be seen whether African Anglicans opposed to gay clergy will take the pope up on his offer for them to join the Catholic church, observers say.
The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday that Anglican bishops in Africa indicated religious autonomy will trump the gay clergy issue.
"I don't think that priests in Uganda are going to leave and join the Roman Catholic church," Ugandan Bishop Stanley Ntagali said. "Uganda is (already) a separate region from the Church in Canterbury. They are able to do things their way, and we have to do things our way."
An aide to Church of Nigeria Archbishop Peter Akinola, the spiritual leader of the continent's 40 million Anglicans, told The Wall Street Journal the cleric is consulting with colleagues and is "still weighing the implications of the Vatican's offer."
Kenyan Bishop Julius Kalu, a conservative who finds homosexuality unacceptable and the ordination of gays as priests against biblical teachings, also doesn't see a migration of Anglicans into the Catholic fold.
"As a church, we have a duty to reach out to those whose lifestyle is homosexual, but at the same time, we feel it is a vice that the church needs to address," he said.
