The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, Bishop of Los Angeles, has agreed to host a number of bishops for a four-day meeting in early July that will continue the conversation that produced the covenant statement overwhelmingly approved by the House of Bishops in March at Camp Allen in Texas.

Division of assets "is one possible outcome," but not the purpose of the meeting, according to Jim Naughton, communications director for the Diocese of Washington. Mr. Naughton confirmed that the Rt. Rev. John B. Chane, Bishop of Washington, had been involved in planning the agenda for the meeting in Los Angeles. The purpose of the meeting "is to discuss how the Episcopal Church can work through this together" and remain faithful to our consciences, Mr. Naughton said.

The meeting continues an informal conversation which began at the House of Bishops’ meeting and includes the same bishops who helped draft the covenant statement. If after four days of discussion, it appears there is no way the Church can move forward together than it is possible, but by no means certain, that conversation in the future will turn toward developing a proposal to divide assets.

The covenant statement called for a moratorium on the consecration of all bishops until after the 2006 General Convention and was developed in response to a request from the Anglican primates that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada not consecrate self-professed homosexuals as bishops until the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops discusses the matter.

To read the text of the covenant statement, click here.

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