London, England - The worldwide Anglican Communion looked set on Wednesday for a slow-burning schism after its leader proposed a two-tier membership that would exclude the United States church for consecrating a gay bishop.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of 77 million Anglicans, laid out the plan after the Episcopal Church declined to repent for appointing a homosexual prelate.
The plan, which would have national churches agree to stay full members or opt for a lesser "associate" status, could also end up isolating liberal Anglican churches in Canada, Scotland and New Zealand that support blessing for same-sex couples.
Media in Britain, cradle of the third-largest family of Christians after the Roman Catholics and Orthodox, saw the Anglican Communion breaking up over the issue of whether members can unilaterally decide on reforms opposed by others.
"It is schism in all but name," the London Times said in an editorial on the plan, which Williams unveiled on Tuesday.
The Communion would probably debate the plan for several years before taking a decision. A schism could create serious financial and property conflicts as factions separate.
The Anglican Communion, a loose federation of national churches, has struggled since 2003 to hold together its liberal minority and the conservative majority -- mostly in Africa -- vigorously opposed to the naming of gay bishop Gene Robinson.
The row deepened last week when the Episcopal Church only agreed to try to avoid consecrating new gay bishops. It also alienated conservatives abroad by choosing a liberal female bishop as its first woman leader.
In a lengthy statement, Williams said the Communion's 38 member churches should be asked to sign a formal covenant allowing some to be fuller members than others.
"Those churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness: some might not be willing to do this," he said.
"We could arrive at a situation where there were 'constituent' churches in the Anglican communion and other 'churches in association' ... not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion and not sharing the same constitutional structures."
Williams, who can propose but not impose a solution, said the church had to change to survive.
"What our communion lacks is a set of adequately developed structures which is able to cope with the diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a world of rapid global communication and huge cultural variety," he said.
The Anglican Church in Nigeria, a leading opponent of gay rights, called the plan "a novel idea" and said it would have to be debated throughout the Communion.
Njongonkulu Ndungane, Anglican Archbishop for Southern Africa who is widely seen as a liberal, urged the church to avoid talk of a schism. "It is our nature as human beings to be diverse and therefore the modern world requires the church to deal with diversity," he said.
The American Anglican Council (AAC), a conservative group in the Episcopal Church, welcomed Williams' proposal but called for urgent interim measures to stop individual parishes splitting away before the covenant plan was implemented.
Some U.S. churches have asked to be put under the authority of more conservative bishops in Africa and Latin America.