They have already started arriving and over the weekend 80 delegates including 11 bishops, clergy, and other representatives from Anglican Churches all over the Caribbean in addition to the U.S. and Canada will congregate in Belize for the triennial synod of the Anglican Church's Province of the West Indies.
The synod will be chaired by Arch-Bishop Drexel Gomez but it is expected to be more business than religion with a wide range of topics to be tabled. Belize's Anglican Bishop the Rt. Rev. Sylvestre Romero-Palma is hosting the synod and he says the issues will range from the gay bishop to female bishops.
Rt. Rev. Sylvestre Romero-Palma, Anglican Bishop of Belize
“We will have delegates, lay, clergy, and bishops and the way it works is that the lay and clergy meet in one corner and the house of Bishops meet in another corner. So we discuss issues in each houses but mainly we meet together too and we discuss those issues and if there is a resolution that needs to come then we pass those resolutions.”
“We will also be dealing with the relationship with the Episcopal church of the United States concerning the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson and the marriage of same sex couples. We will decide how we will deal with those issues especially concerning our relationship. We have already passed a resolution at the previous Synod that we will not ordain anyone who is openly gay. There will also be a resolution concerning the acceptance of women to the episcopate, in other words to become bishop. Right now they can be ordained to be priests but that is far as they will go in the province at this moment so they will be a resolution as whether or not they should be ordained or consecrated as bishops. We will also deal with the financial issues which is a major issue in every church and how we will stretch the income that we have and how we will use it.”
The synod will be officially opened Sunday at Saint John's Cathedral and runs through to the 19th.