Church Of England

As Britain reels under unprecedented levels of immigration that have challenged the small island nation's traditions, the Archbishop of Canterbury entered the fray this week by declaring it is probably "unavoidable" that some limited form of Islamic law will have to be accepted in Britain. The archbishop, Rowan Williams, is the spiritual leader of the Church of England, and his pronouncement, aimed at building greater inclusiveness for Britain's 1.

The archbishop of Canterbury on Monday defended himself against a firestorm of recent criticism, telling fellow Anglicans his statement last week that Britain would have to accept some limited form of Islamic law had been misunderstood. Speaking to a gathering of elected representatives from the Church of England, Archbishop Rowan Williams said he took full responsibility "for any unclarity . . . and for any misleading choice of words that has helped cause distress or misunderstanding."

Sony Corp. issued a public apology for a violent video game that features a bloody shootout inside an Anglican cathedral, but it did not address the Church of England's demands that the company withdraw the game. The church has demanded that Sony stop selling the game "Resistance: Fall of Man," which includes a gun battle between an American soldier and aliens inside a building that resembles Manchester Cathedral in northwest England.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has left the Church of England and converted to Catholicism, the faith of his wife and children. Blair converted during a Mass on Friday night at the private London chapel of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, the church said. "I'm very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church," Murphy-O'Connor said.

The Church of England has agreed to allow researchers using radar to look beneath two churches for remains that could determine whether a skeleton found at the Jamestown settlement in Virginia is that of one of the colony's founders, scientists said Monday. Scientists who excavated the site of a 400-year-old fort at Jamestown want to know if the skeleton discovered in 2003 is that of Bartholomew Gosnold, captain of one of the three ships that carried settlers from England.

A Ugandan-born cleric who opposes gay priests in the Anglican church as well as U.S. and British military involvement in Iraq was named an archbishop of the Church of England, the first black man to reach that rank in its 500-year history. The Right Rev. John Sentamu, 56, now bishop of Birmingham, was appointed by the British government as archbishop of York, the church's second-highest position after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who leads the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Church of England voted to move toward ordaining women as bishops, a step that could provoke an exodus of conservative clergy and widen splits within the worldwide Anglican Communion. A synod meeting in the city of York voted to "remove legal obstacles" in church law to female bishops, a process church officials say could take about four years to complete.

A Church of England parish has come to the rescue of a village in danger of losing its post office. In the village of Hemingford Grey, 12 miles northwest of Cambridge, the 70-year-old postmaster announced his retirement, but no one came forward to replace him. The village has a high proportion of elderly residents as well as a considerable number of mothers with small children.

The Lord's Prayer, one of the cornerstones of Christianity, has become the focus of a religious donnybrook pitting traditionalists against modernists in Britain's official Church of England. Should prayer use powerful rhetorical language, or should it be simple, direct and accessible? That is the question facing leaders of the Church of England and being echoed in other Christian denominations around the world also seeking ecumenical agreement and a common Lord's Prayer for the new millennium.

A survey of six of 44 dioceses in the state Church of England found that most women priests have suffered some form of harassment, according to the Observer newspaper. William Beaver, the church's communications chief, said the church is studying the survey, which has yet to be released to the public. Because of the small sampling, he said, "we do not think that such conclusions that most women priests are bullied can be drawn."