The Scottish Episcopal Church has waded into the row over gay clergy by saying that it did not consider that being a practising homosexual barred someone from being a priest.

The statement, from the church's College of Bishops, was posted on its website almost three weeks ago as its considered response to a communique from the Primates of the Anglican Communion calling for a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops.

In it, the bishops said that the Scottish church had never regarded the fact that "someone was in a close relationship with a member of the same sex as in itself constituting a bar to the exercise of an ordained ministry".

But after being picked up last night by a BBC reporter, the previously unnoticed statement spread rapidly via the internet and soon brought a warning from one priest in Glasgow that the Scottish church risked being seen as a mere sect if it aligned itself too closely to liberals in the US and Canada.

The Primates' request for a moratorium was an attempt to cool the heated row that broke out after the consecration of an openly gay bishop in the United States and the blessing of same sex unions in Canada. Vehement opposition from the church in Africa to any tolerance of homosexuality threatens to split the Anglican Communion.

America has now imposed a moratorium on the consecration of all bishops, gay or straight.

The intervention of the Scottish church will do nothing to cool the row. But in an appearance on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, the Primate of the Scottish church appeared slightly bemused by all the fuss, and said that the bishops had been trying to discuss the issue properly, not issue provocative soundbites.

The Most Rev Bruce Cameron, Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, said: "There are homosexual priests in Scotland, as there are in many other churches, not only Anglican.

"We are not making a provocative statement, we are in fact simply declaring what the present position is and has always been."

The Bishop said he "didn't think that there was a lot of difference" between the position of the Scottish church and of the churches in Canada and the US on gay ordinations.

"We have been a fairly open and welcoming church," Bishop Cameron said. "But we have not moved at this point to consecrate a gay bishop and we have not authorised any same sex unions. We have simply said that there may be pastoral situations where a priest may feel it appropriate to offer a blessing to a same sex couple. There is not a liturgy."

He said that any practising homosexual who applied to join the priesthood would go through the same process of discernment and systematic testing of their vocation as any other applicant.

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