The St. Thomas rector explained that he has begun to see the word "marriage" in purely legal terms and has come to realize that he and his partner "need" the legal rights and responsibilities afforded in a marriage.

After seeking legal marriage in another state, the gay couple will then seek the church's blessing through a liturgy which will be attended and presided by three bishops - Rochester Bishop Prince Singh, retired Bishop Jack McKelvey, and Maine Bishop Stephen Lane.

The announcement comes as more dioceses within The Episcopal Church have permitted clergy to wed homosexual couples despite the call by leaders in the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which The Episcopal Church is the U.S. arm, to practice gracious restraint in regards to the blessing of gay and lesbian couples.

Last summer, The Episcopal Church approved a resolution allowing "bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal" to "provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church."

The resolution also noted the need to consider providing theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same gender relationships. The Episcopal Church does not permit its "Order of Marriage" to be used in the marriage of same-sex couples.

The 6.5-magnitude quake hit at 10:59 a.m. (0259 GMT), 195 miles (295 kilometers) off the southern Taiwan city of Taitung at a depth of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. The agency's initial report had put the quake's magnitude at 6.9.

In Taipei, buildings swayed for up to 20 seconds when the quake hit, but police said there were no reports of casualties or damage anywhere on the island. No tsunami alert was issued.

Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan but most are minor and cause little or no damage. However, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people.

For this reason Meeting God in Friend and Stranger needs to reach a wider readership than just British Catholics. An important attempt to "read the signs of the times" and, as a consequence, to promote the importance of inter-religious dialogue, it both draws on and tries to clarify some of the complex questions arising from the contemporary Catholic position about relationships with other faiths. It sets out simply what the Catholic Church means by dialogue, "a way of living in positive relations with others", and evangelisation, when Christians "enable the reign or Kingdom of God to permeate the minds and hearts, the cultures and activities of the world of their time", as well as clearly distinguishing them from "relativism" and "proselytism".

The basic theological underpinning is also carefully teased out. The root proposition is the universality of God's love, the corresponding unity - in diversity - of the human race and the irreducible primacy of human dignity. This means that Catholics are called to dialogue not as an optional extra. Dialogue is "intrinsic to our understanding of Church" as the "sacrament of humanity" whether it is dialogue of life, action, theological discussion or spirituality. Catholics must therefore strive to be "open to all that is true and holy" in other faiths, and moreover, to "acknowledge, preserve and encourage" their "spiritual and moral truths... together with their social life and culture".

Catholics "come together to pray" with other faiths - as Pope John Paul II did on occasions at Assisi - with each faith praying in its own way; they do not "pray together" with them. This is a subtle distinction yet one of understandable importance to religious leaders. The bishops are also refreshingly open about the problem posed to genuine dialogue by the harassment and sometimes persecution of Christians in some countries.

The Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, says about Muslims, "and together with us they adore the one merciful God". But does it mean that when Muslims attend their Friday or daily worship, they are incidentally praying on behalf of Jews and Christians who share their adoration - but not necessarily their regular prayer life? This would be a comforting thought for those with a prayer deficit. If, as Christian theology holds, the "fullness of truth" will only be realised with the second coming of Christ, how, from a Christian perspective, can anyone be sure that non-Christian faiths are adequately described as containing only "glimpses of that one truth" or reflecting a single "ray of that truth" ? This would be a humbling thought for those disabled by certainty.

In his introduction to the 102-page text titled "Meeting God in Friend and Stranger: Fostering Mutual Respect and Understanding Between the Religions," the archbishop stated that there are those who believe that religious beliefs "are divisive and, at worst, belittling."

The Catholic faith, Archbishop Nichols continued, "instructs us and guides us not only in the unique pathway to God through Jesus Christ, but also in the manner in which we are to learn about and cooperate with people of other faiths."That work of learning about and cooperating with other faiths, he added, is "a task and a duty which falls to us all."

"Our parishes often include Catholics from Africa, India, Vietnam, South America, the Caribbean and the Philippines, not to mention those who came from Poland and Italy in the 1940s, and the immigrants from Eastern Europe over the past few years." The bishops note that the Church in the United Kingdom "has been greatly enriched by this diversity, showing us how the one Gospel can be 'inculturated' in many different ways."

"To turn away from even the attempt to dialogue is to despair of the power of God and of his risen Son to advance his own Kingdom of peace and love," the text adds. "It is to forget that the work of dialogue, as with all forms of evangelization, is not our work at all, but his. We are merely his 'earthen vessels,' whose limitations show that the extraordinary power belongs to God, and does not come from us."