The Archbishop of Canterbury was facing demands to quit as the row over sharia law intensified.
Leading bishops publicly contradicted Dr Rowan Williams’s http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3327 to be brought into the British legal system.
With the Church of England plunged into crisis, senior figures were said to be discussing the archbishop’s future.
One member of the church’s “Cabinet”, the Archbishop’s Council, was reported as saying: “There have been a lot of calls for him to resign. I don’t suppose he will take any http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2946, but, yes, he should resign.”
Officials at Lambeth Palace told the BBC Dr Williams was in a “state of shock” and “completely overwhelmed” by the scale of the row.
It was said that he could not believe the fury of the reaction. The most damaging attack came from the Pakistan born Bishop of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2851 affecting its integrity”.
Sharia “would be in tension with the English legal tradition on questions like http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3301, provisions for divorce, the rights of women, custody of children, laws of evidence.
“This is not to mention the relation of freedom of belief and of expression to provisions for blasphemy and apostasy.”