Almost the whole burden of preserving the Anglican Communion from schism now rests on the shoulders of the Episcopal Church in the United States. It has about seven months to decide whether to comply with a tough package of conditions drawn up by the Anglican primates in Tanzania this week. If they fail, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will refuse to invite their bishops to the next Lambeth Conference in 2008, membership of which defines a bishop as being in the Anglican Communion. Because of his power to exclude, the drawing up of the invitee list is one of the rare occasions when the Archbishop of Canterbury functions as an Anglican Pope.

For Dr Williams the Tanzania outcome is light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Prior to the meeting, one widely expected outcome was that the two factions in the Anglican Communion would, under his presidency, split it down the middle (or across the Equator, given how much the split is geographical as well as theological). The older, white, Western churches would continue their slow progress towards liberalising their discipline, particularly towards homosexuality, while the newer, black churches would continue to go their own more fundamentalist way. But now, instead of a bad-tempered break into two roughly equal halves, the more likely outcome is a split 35 against one. And it would be the odd one out which chose that fate for itself.

It may well do so. Provincial autonomy - the right of each branch of Anglicanism to decide its own policy - is more an article of faith in American Anglicanism than anywhere else for historical reasons: 1776 was an ecclesiastical as well as a political breaking point. Similarly, there is a tendency for Episcopalians to see themselves as trendsetters regarding such issues as homosexuality, as they were over women's ordination. So the climbdown required is a hard one. But the future direction of the Anglican Communion now seems set, with proposals for an "Anglican Covenant" ...

The report by the Von Hügel Institute into the needs of recent Catholic migrants in London throws down a challenge to which the Church must respond. As a result of the accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union and Britain's relatively open-door policy towards them, tens of thousands of mainly young migrants find themselves away from home with only one familiar institution to turn to - the ...

The key subtext to the recent row over the right of Catholic adoption agencies to discriminate against homosexuals was the widespread public perception that the Catholic Church is a homophobic institution - a position reinforced by gay lobby groups, which regard the Church's defeat over the adoption issue as a singular triumph over a powerful enemy.

This ought not to be the case. It would be wise of the ...

The proposed "compromise" by the Government over the fate of Catholic adoption agencies is in truth a defeat for the Catholic Church and a victory for those who have been opposing any exemption to the new regulations against homosexual discrimination. But the Government's position has to be confirmed by Parliament, and MPs have yet to test the strength of Catholic feeling in their constituencies ...

Battle has been joined over the threat to Catholic adoption agencies, contained in a clause in proposed legislation to outlaw discrimination against homosexuals in publicly funded services.

The 12 adoption agencies in England and Wales have a total budget of nearly £100 million a year, and more than half of what they spend on adoption work comes from local authorities. The Catholic ...