GET ME RIGHT: Orombi addresses journalists at his residence in Namirembe yesterday

By Alfred Wasike

ARCHBISHOP Henry Luke Orombi refused Holy Communion while at the Anglican Communion Primates Summit in Tanzania over the issue of homosexuality.

He also reiterated his stance that the Church of Uganda cannot accept homosexuality because it contravenes the Bible and African culture.

“I have not received Holy Communion at any primates’ meeting since the US Episcopal Church consecrated a divorced bishop living in a same-sex relationship,” Orombi revealed during a press conference at his residence in Namirembe yesterday.

“I, along with several of my colleagues, were unable to come to the Holy Table with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. To do so would have been a violation of the teaching and traditional Anglican understanding of Holy Communion,” he explained.

He stated that according to the Bible, sexual intimacy is reserved for a husband and wife “in life-long, heterosexual, monogamous marriages. For us in Uganda, this is a matter of life and death.”

The Church of Uganda and 21 of the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion severed ties with the American Anglican Church after a gay bishop was consecrated in 2003, an act that caused widespread uproar among traditionalists, particularly in Africa, home to more than half the world’s Anglicans.

The meeting in Tanzania was meant to reconcile conservative and liberal views on homosexuality. But it could not convince the Church of Uganda.

“We remain in broken communion until they demonstrate true repentance,” Orombi stated. “We continue to reject funds from them and from American dioceses which have revised historic, Biblical faith and morality.”

He added that the Church of Uganda was committed to providing pastoral care for those struggling with sexual temptations like homosexual urges, heterosexual pornography, pre-marital sex and marital adultery.

“I call upon our government leaders to uphold marriage between one man and one woman, and the family they produce as a foundation for our society and our country,” he concluded.

Others who boycotted Holy Communion were the archbishops of Nigeria, Singapore, Kenya, Rwanda and West Africa.