The U.S. bishop at the heart of a global Anglican maelstrom over homosexuality says he fears he'll be the first and last openly gay priest appointed for a while to his church's hierarchy as a result of an international commission's report on future Anglican unity.

Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, predicts that the report will have a chilling effect on the aspirations of gay and lesbian priests "and, probably more so . . . I think it may be a while before a diocese puts itself in the spotlight by nominating or electing [as a bishop] a gay or lesbian person. Those are the realities."

Speaking openly for the first time since the commission chaired by Irish Archbishop Robin Eames made public its recommendations Monday, Bishop Robinson also said he thinks many of his fellow Americans will read the report's recommendations, "shake their heads, and say, 'Oh my God, how out of touch could they be?' "

The commission, appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, titular leader of the world Anglican Communion and its 75 million adherents, called on leaders of the Episcopal Church -- as Anglicanism is called in the United States -- to express regrets for appointing Bishop Robinson last year without the rest of the church's approval.

It also recommended the Anglican Church of Canada express regrets for declaring the "sanctity" of committed same-sex unions, and that Bishop Michael Ingham of Vancouver's Diocese of New Westminster voice regrets for authorizing same-sex unions' blessing.

The homosexuality issue has caused deep rifts inside the Canadian and U.S. churches and threatened a schismatic fracture -- separation -- between Anglicanism's 38 loosely federated churches in the developing and developed world.

Bishop Robinson, a divorced father of two, lives in a same-sex relationship. The leader of Nigeria's 17 million Anglicans, Archbishop Peter Akinola, has said homosexuality is not even done by dogs. He has cut relations with the Episcopal Church and Bishop Ingham's diocese and predicted "the end of the road" for the world church -- which is why the Eames commission was created: to try to keep together a multicultural church with differing values and biblical interpretations.

Bishop Robinson said he was astounded that the commission had no declared homosexuals among its 17 members, all senior church officials from around the world.

"I mean, can you imagine having a commission study racism with no people of colour at the table, or study sexism and have no women at the table? And yet it seems perfectly fine -- in fact [on the contrary] you'd be accused of doing something horrible -- not to have a gay or lesbian person at the table talking about these issues."

He said the commission "very carefully and very movingly talks about the pain experienced across the Anglican Communion over my consecration. [But] not one word is mentioned about the pain that lesbians and gay men have experienced at the hands of the church for countless centuries. I would have appreciated an acknowledgment of that pain and a call for an expression of regret." Still, he tried to put the commission's report in a positive light. He said he hoped he could read in "a new willingness to allow gay and lesbian people to be . . . talked with, rather than about."

In Vancouver, Bishop Ingham pointed out that the commission carefully did not recommend he rescind authorization of same-sex blessings, merely that he express regret -- which he did this week -- for authorizing them out of step with the world church. Next month, the governing body of the country's largest Anglican diocese, in Toronto, will consider following Vancouver's lead.

"The real tragedy in what's been happening," Bishop Robinson said, "is that this one issue has been raised higher than all that holds us [as a Christian church] together."