IMPEACH BUSH

Responding to an ultimatum from the leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion, bishops of the Episcopal Church have rejected a key demand to create a parallel leadership structure to serve the conservative minority of Episcopalians who oppose their church's liberal stand on homosexuality.

The bishops, meeting at a retreat center outside of Houston, said they were aware that their decision could lead to the exclusion of the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion, an international confederation of churches tied to the Church of England.

The bishops have a "deep longing" to remain part of the Communion, they said, but they are unwilling to compromise the Episcopal Church's autonomy and its commitment to full equality for all people, including gay men and lesbians.

In a strongly worded statement issued Tuesday night, the bishops said the Communion's attempt to impose a parallel authority structure "violates our founding principles as the Episcopal Church following our own liberation from colonialism." The bishops inserted a gentle reminder that the Episcopal Church long ago declared itself independent from the Church of England.

"We cannot accept what would be injurious to this church and could well lead to its permanent division," the bishops said in their statement, a set of three resolutions addressed to the church's executive council.

They called for an urgent "face to face" meeting in the United States with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the leader of the Church of England, and a representative committee of the church's primates, who head the international provinces. The primates, at their meeting last month in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, are the ones who issued the formal set of demands to the Episcopal Church.

The demands also asked that the Episcopal Church refrain from ordaining openly gay bishops and stop allowing blessings of same-sex couples. The bishops, while not addressing those demands directly in their new statement, did reiterate their commitment to including "all God's people" including gay men and lesbians in church life.

A spokesman for the Anglican Communion said the Archbishop of Canterbury was still digesting the statement from the American bishops and might issue a response later today.

The United States bishops plan to hold a news conference late this afternoon.

Many liberal and moderate Episcopalians immediately applauded the bishops for standing by their principles. Response from conservative Episcopalians ran the gamut from confusion to angry resolve that this, surely, is the last straw.

Reached by telephone as he was leaving the bishops meeting, Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, who leads a network of conservatives who have been asking for alternative oversight, would only say: "I'm really thinking through what all this means."