A fierce debate on euthanasia at the Lambeth Conference yesterday had to be adjourned until today after Bishop Rowan Williams of Monmouth, Wales, pointed out that the assembly was handling a considerable number of amendments without having them in writing - something that would cause even greater difficulty for those bishops whose first language was not English.
At issue was not euthanasia itself, which the resolution before the conference defined as "the act by which one person intentionally causes or assists in causing the death of another who is terminally or seriously ill in order to end the other's pain and suffering", and which, it said, was "neither compatible with the Christian faith nor should be permitted in civil legislation".
But what proved contentious was when the resolution went on to distinguish between euthanasia and "withholding the timing, or terminating excessive medical treatment as intervention". The latter, it said, "may be consonant with Christian faith in enabling a person to die with dignity".
The issue here was the withdrawal of treatment from those in a persistent vegetative state. Any move in this direction was fiercely opposed by Archbishop Moses Tay of Singapore, who acted as a doctor both before and after his ordination. It would be equivalent to starving a patient to death, he said. "It is cruel, it is consciously inflicting suffering, it is killing," he added. But whether the conference as a whole agrees with him will be decided today.
The conference went on to endorse the resolution on international debt, which had been expected to go through on the nod, but which came forward for debate after 50 bishops had requested this.
Meanwhile, there were reactions aplenty to Wednesday's overwhelming vote condemning homosexual practices. One of British Anglicanism's leading supporters of the gay cause, Bishop Richard Holloway of Edinburgh, of the Scottish Episcopal Church, criticised the leadership exercised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey.
The bishop, who said he felt "lynched" and "violated" by the debate and its outcome, described Dr Carey as "pathetic" and his contribution at the end of the debate as "a fluffy epilogue". He added, "It would have been better for him to remain silent."
Dr Holloway saw the whole controversy as conservative Anglicans in the US using their brethren in the Third World to get back at their liberal opponents in America. Noting that if you were in trouble in your own backyard you hired a proxy army to discomfit your enemy back home, he said: "They didn't hand out dollar bills. They sent out quite expensive mailings, and they hosted barbeques. It's new colonialism."
However, the secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Mr Richard Kirker, took a more optimistic line. He was, of course, disappointed by the outcome of the debate, but he saw it as having put the subject on the agenda of Anglican provinces where otherwise it would not have been discussed at all. "The cat is now out of the bag," he said.
"It has brought matters out into the open and the Anglican communion can take some credit for organising itself in a way which permits open debate," he said. But he noted that one voice not heard in the conference debate was that of any lesbian or gay Christian. "Some were present, but none felt able to identify themselves in the debate," he said.
And now it was an issue the Anglican communion could not avoid dealing with, especially as in the resolution it adopted it had committed itself to listening to gays and lesbians.