After nearly seven days of prayerful discussion in a secluded setting, the leaders of the Anglican Communion emerged with the broad outline of a plan for increased accountability among its 38 provinces.

Its success depends partly on the Episcopal Church's willingness to refrain from further challenges to traditional teaching during the period in which the proposal is developed.

Meeting at the Kanuga Conference Center near Hendersonville, N.C., from March 2-9, leaders or primates from 35 of the 38 international provinces chose not to criticize the Episcopal Church for its support of gay rights nor did the primates adopt a proposal which would have made the primates directly accountable to each other.

The Episcopal Church has never formally rejected the traditional Anglican belief that homosexual acts are sinful, but many bishops do not take sexual orientation into account when judging a candidate for ordination to the priesthood. Some primates are also concerned by reports that Episcopalians who do adhere to traditional Anglican teachings are marginalized because of their beliefs.

Partly in response to these concerns, two primates, the Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, Archbishop of the West Indies, and the Most Rev. Maurice Sinclair, Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone, wrote a book titled To Mend the Net [TLC, Feb. 25].

Under their proposal, the primates would have been required to inform each other of theological innovations and hold back from implementing them if such action was opposed by a significant minority of fellow primates. If a province chose to proceed anyway, it could be demoted to "observer status" within the communion. A final step contemplated suspension of the "intransigent body" and creation of a new province to cover its former geographic area.

While the primates did not adopt To Mend the Net, they did not entirely reject it either. Instead it will become part of a much larger package of resources used to develop a proposal for consideration when the primates meet again in April 2002.

"We as a church in this wealthy nation are challenged to look carefully at our patterns of consumption, our attitudes of self-interest, and at some of the values we accept uncritically as part of our society," said the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop in a statement he released at the conclusion of the meeting. "With the phenomenon of globalization a reality, all that we do and say in our own country impinges directly and immediately on our global neighbors."