Conservative Episcopalians have moved quickly in the month since the consecration of V. Gene Robinson as the denomination's first openly homosexual bishop to set up an alternate denomination that has legal and ecumenical clout.
Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan has been selected to lead this new group, called the Network of Confessing Dioceses and Congregations, which includes 13 active Episcopal bishops and 384,935 laity. That's the number of signatures to a statement of support on the Web site of the American Anglican Council (AAC).
Bishop Duncan, who is also AAC vice president, will be a main speaker at "Plano East;" a Northern Virginia gathering of conservatives from the Virginia and D.C. dioceses meeting Jan. 9-10 at Hylton Memorial Chapel in Woodbridge, Va. Named after an October gathering in Dallas that galvanized 2,700 conservative Episcopalians, it will be the first of several regional...