by TONY BEST

THE LOOMING DIVIDE between Anglicans and the United States Episcopal Church may force Bajan and other West Indian priests to choose between the two churches by the end of the year.

In short, if the rupture occurs, priests wouldn't be able to move easily from say Barbados to New York and back to the Caribbean island as now happens.

That dire warning has come from West Indies Archbishop Drexel Gomez, a former Bishop of Barbados. He made it clear that if the worldwide Anglican communion of which Barbados isa part, and the United States Episcopal Church
go their separate ways over the United States ordination of openly gay bishops and the American church's decision to bless same-sex gay marriages, then Bajan and other West Indian priests who accept appointments in the United
States would have to leave the Anglican church.

"They would have to choose between the two," he said.

The split wouldn't affect worshippers, but it would definitely hurt priests who aspire to take up lucrative appointments in the Episcopal Church while keeping their links to the Anglican dioceses back home.

Several Barbadian priests now serve in Episcopal parishes in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Florida and other parts of America, and Archbishop Gomez said if the rupture occurs then they would have to make a choice.

The largest number of Anglican or Episcopal priests from the Caribbean now serving in the United States comes from Jamaica. Others are Antiguans, Bahamians, Belizeans, Trinidadians and Guyanese.

"Accepting an appointment in the United States would mean the person in the West Indies would be making a conscious decision to go in a particular direction," said Archbishop Gomez, head of the West Indies Province and one of the 38 primates or leaders of the worldwide Anglican Church.

In an interview from his office in the Bahamas, the Archbishop, who is due to visit Barbados soon, said that while the door would remain open to priests who opted for the United States Episcopal church to return to the West Indies, they simply couldn't continue with business as usual should a rupture occur later this year.

No decision yet

"There is always room for returning [to the West Indies Province] but the terms and conditions we haven't discussed that," he said.

The matter of the priests and what would happen to them may be discussed later this year when the province holds its synod in Antigua. Indeed, the full ramifications of the division are expected to be discussed in detail at the meeting to be attended by clerics from every diocese.

The primates gave the United States church a deadline of September 30 to decide its next move in the conflict, but should the United States decline to comply with the edict, then it might suffer consequences that would affect
the Episcopalians relationship with the Anglican Communion, warned the Anglican Communion.

Automatic break

But Archbishop Gomez was quick to say that failure to meet the deadline wouldn't mean an automatic break in relations between the West Indies Province and the Episcopalians because "it wouldtake some time, possibly by the end of the year" for the breakto take effect.

The West Indies primate, who has taken a strong stance against the ordination of openly gay priests and bishops in
the province, said that a break with the Americans wouldn't have any significant financial impact on West Indian dioceses.

"We don't receive a lot of assistance from the United States church so it wouldn't have much, if any, of an impact on us. We in the church in the West Indies have been consistent on this. We oppose the practise of homosexuality
by priests.
That's clear."

As the dispute continues to reverberate around the world, Episcopal bishops have called for an urgent "face-to-face meeting" with the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church of England, and a committee of the Anglican provinces.

Archbishop Gomez is likely to be a member of that panel.