Rome rejected his petition for an annulment from Catherine on the
grounds a dispensation had been granted from whatever impediment might
be involved, and later, Catherine, defending her marriage to Henry,
insisted the marriage to 16-year-old Arthur (even then sickly) had never
been consummated. Her confessor, Bishop John Fisher, argued in her
favor, and he above all others would have known if in fact the marriage
to Henry's brother was complete (ratum et consummatum).

For his several other marriages, Henry could find no other argument
other than that he by his own declaration, approved by a supine
Parliament, was head of the Church in England, and could do as he wished.

All of this defied the clear evidence in Scripture that putting one's
wife away and taking another is adultery, as well as the fact that
Christ made Peter, who became Bishop of Rome, as His Vicar on earth, and
that the Church had recognized the Bishop of Rome and no other as having
that title and authority to teach, govern, and bind and loose. In
breaking with that authority, Henry and all who accepted his schism
which rapidly evolved into full-blown heresy, reduced religion to being
simply what its constituents, whether citizens, monarchs, or clerics or
those pretending to be clerics, want it to be.

All of that must be kept in mind in considering the decision of the
Episcopal Church, an offshoot or sprout of Anglicanism, that a man
living in a feigned state of spousal relationship with another man,
having split from his wife and children to do so, is fit to be a bishop.
Indeed, spokesmen for the majority that voted approval of this promotion
of an Episcopal cleric to hierarchical status have proclaimed him more
than fit for the job ? they have praised him as deeply spiritual,
exemplary in his ministry, a paragon of priesthood deserving the rank to
which they have lifted him by his invisible halo, as it were.

That this is a step toward recognizing "marriage" of homosexuals is
admitted by supporters of this decision, one of whom (the bishop of the
Episcopal seminary) said it is just a matter of bringing along reluctant
Episcopalians to accepting such a step. Approval for blessing such
"marriages" awaits the community's arrival at the point the homosexual
activists and their supporters have planned ? the debauching of the
marriage of man and woman by putting homosexual acts on its level.

The New Hampshire bishop-elect at the center of this parody of
religion said Episcopalians are on a "learning curve" that will lead
them to accept "gays" in every position of authority, which of course
minimizes the real intention, that it will be an acceptance not only of
their sexual appetites, but of their indulgence in those appetites by
sodomy and other unmentionable sexual acts, none of which is in keeping
with the decent and natural purpose of the sexual faculties given us by
our Creator. The only learning curve Christians should be on is toward
obeying, serving, and following Christ as closely and perfectly as
possible, which includes being chaste.

Therefore, any genuine learning curve to be followed by Christians
leads to Christ's teaching, rather than away from it. And one of those
teachings is that lust is forbidden to the Master's followers, and that
sex is to be used to make man and woman one flesh. The Church has always
accepted that Christ made this nuptial union analogous to His own union
with His Church. It is therefore blasphemous to even consider equating
the lustful acts of homosexual sex with marriage, and it is sacrilegious
to attempt to dignify such "unions" with a blessing or liturgy, which
the Episcopal Church is on it way toward doing.

Make no mistake, two major evils are involved here ? lust and pride,
the claim of autonomy in the matter of sexual use and the claim of
righteousness in asserting lust is virtue rather than vice.

There is little chance the Anglican Church, the schismatic root of
Episcopalianism, will intervene effectively in what its brash American
offspring is doing. For one thing, there is no effective authority at
hand to do it. Just as the formal head of that Church ? the British
monarch ? is a figurehead, her primate-designate, the archbishop of
Canterbury, is as well. Even if he had effective power, the present
holder of that office is an earth, fire, and wind worshiper. It is not
likely he would be overly shocked at the desire of some within the
church he heads to appear costumed as fauns, frolicking after one
another piping the music of the Lupercal.

After all, the Anglican Church has surrendered traditional opposition
to contraception, abortion, female clergy, divorce. It would be naïve to
think it will now take a stand against its "shepherds" engaging in
objectionable activities of all sorts, and even being admired for doing
so. The argument that God loves everyone is attractive in an egalitarian
age that insists what one does would never be counted against the good
God's desire to have all saved. Further, the revolt against the nature
and meaning of human acts in favor of fides sola or even good intentions
suggests that Heaven is guaranteed.

Indeed, the truth that God loves everyone is now taken as that very
guarantee. That overlooks that the crucial question for God's creatures
is ? do they love God?

It's easy to answer that question with ? "of course!" But then, what
did Jesus mean when He said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,'
shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father
in Heaven shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven." And what is the meaning of
the parable that tells of seven foolish virgins denied entry to the
wedding feast because they let the oil of their lanterns burn out?

There is not a hint of scriptural teaching, including that of Christ,
that sexual satisfaction alone can provide the substance of marriage.
But there is direct testimony aplenty that the use of sex to bring new
lives into being is such substance. God makes woman to be man's
companion; the command to Adam is to increase and multiply. Jesus
reminds His listeners that at the beginning the creation was of man and
woman who can become one flesh, and for that reason any putting away of
one's wife and remarriage involves adultery. The only nuptial blessing
given by Christ was at Cana.

St. Paul condemns the desire of man for man, woman for woman in no
uncertain terms. And thus for those who believe in the inerrancy of
scriptural teaching, in the protection of the valid episcopal college
from error, must surely accept that sodomy is a major departure from
that teaching, and therefore a grave sin which, if not sincerely
repented and resisted, would disqualify any candidate for that college.

The decline of sexual morality in the West, and even within what
citadels of Christianity as remain, is the evil fruit of a totally
personalist, subjective moral jurisdiction by each individual. The
"privacy" claimed in matters of sex ? even extending to reproduction ?
is simply an assertion of autonomy of the individual in that area of
life. It makes no matter if that is the case what any other authority
says, even when it is the authority of Christ's Church, headed by His
Vicar on earth, or the recorded authority of God's word.

Sexual sins amount to Adam's choosing to eat of the fruit that God
ordered him to forgo in Eden. Not all sexual sins are of equal malice,
and there may be subjective mitigation of guilt in their regard. But if
sodomy and other deviant sexual use are not seriously immoral, then
surely no other sexual use can be condemned, either in or outside of
marriage. Give in regarding homosexual sex, and every city becomes
Sodom, every person becomes a potential citizen of Gomorrah.

None of the above is meant to insult or denigrate or even discourage
sincere Anglicans or Episcopalians. And undoubtedly some may be ignorant
of the issues involved in the origins and directions of their
denominations. But most educated persons of those churches must
recognize some facts of history. They must recognize how the Church of
England drifted into a state of indifference to the meaning of
apostolicity, entering a state of quasi-Protestanism and surrendered the
full sacramentalism (most disastrously the Mass) that it kept at its
very beginning (though for only a matter of months).

If they know anything about the revolt of the Non-Jurors against the
acceptance of Protestant royal houses by the Church of England, and of
the later Oxford Movement that attempted to revive Anglicanism's
historic link to the Church before Henry's schism and Elizabeth's
heresy, then they will know the direction of their church has been
toward doctrinal and moral dissolution from the beginning.

The last serious chance for Anglicanism to choose either the
substance of Catholic faith or the path to irrelevance was the issuance
of John Henry Cardinal Newman's Tract 90 of the Oxford Movement. That
attempted to establish a compatibility of Anglicanism's 39 Articles of
Faith with the ancient Creeds and interpretations of Catholicism. The
Anglican authorities of the early 19th century used Newman's tract as an
excuse to silence the Oxford Movement. Many Anglicans, especially
Oxfordians, went to Rome with Newman; many, many more remained with an
Anglicanism now revealed as determined to resist any challenge to its
presumptions to be genuinely linked to the Church Christ founded.

That has led to the present moment, when it is clear the
congregational idea of being whatever members of the "community" want it
to be puts the Anglican and Episcopalian Churches on the edge of total
religious irrelevance. Gradually, if those churches do not step back
from that possibility, they will merge with the prevailing culture no
matter how pagan, indecent, perverted, or diabolic that culture might
become.

Other Protestant churches have already become pale shadows of
Christianity, even the Christianity of their Reformation founders. A few
islands of resistance to that fate remain, but it is unlikely these can
remain long above the tides of secular morality (more properly,
immorality).

In attempting to be relevant to such culture, "Christian" churches
become more and more irrelevant. That is proving itself true even within
some areas of the Catholic Church. Modernist theology and thought are
becoming more and more unattractive, more and more like a senile
nonagenarian who has lost his memory along with his recognizability as
something meaningful to the following of Christ. What is prospering is
traditional Catholicism faithful to the Church's beginnings and the
ongoing stream of Tradition as a parallel Revelation to Scripture.

That will be a bulwark for the Catholic Church as it rejects such
enormities as "gay unions," women clergy, trial marriage, legalized
adultery, vice converted to virtue, sin mutated into sanctity. And
reject it it will, for the promise was made to the Church built upon the
Rock who was Peter and now is each of his Successors, ". . . and the
gates of Hell will not prevail against it."

It should be clear to all who have the purity of heart that enables
them to have a true religious vision that such protection was not given
any other church, as those gates prevail more and more over the purely
human claim to hold divine credentials.

END