And because of your love, not only of your husband, and of your daughter, but for all of humanity, you decide that you should become an ordained minister of the Gospel. And nothing says love of humanity so much as taking the cloth and serving as the substitute for the God-made-man who lay down His life so that we all can have new life in the God who created love and who has loved us so much that He sent His only Son to teach us His way of love. And so you teach Sunday school and are called the youth minister to teach others the way of love for one another regardless of race, color, creed or gender identity.

And you take on-line courses to be ordained a minister. On-line courses are of course ideally suited for ordination because you never have to confront in person those who do not share your unbound love for all of creation, who believe that proper love between persons should be expressed for the opposite gender. And these others have read the Bible and determined that even though Jesus did not condemn same-sex attraction, He fully adopted the Hebraic belief that love leading to marriage should be between a man and a woman. But that is simply a detail that must have been overruled by Jesus' death and resurrection from the dead so that all may live and love.

And you find a bishop who is willing to ordain you to the ministry. And this bishop was once a "canon pastor" to another bishop and as such was responsible for receiving complaints of sexual misconduct by ministers within that diocese. And this canon pastor received at least one such complaint and the minister who was alleged to have committed this act was defrocked. But after 30 years, this bishop returns to that diocese and it pays out $750,000 to the person who made the complaint because maybe, just maybe, that complaint was mishandled. And because this diocese is going to sell its office-building center for mega-millions, it is flush with cash to pay even claims from decades ago no matter how meritorious or tenuous. Because $750K is just chump.

And a parishioner where this candidate for ordination serves as Sunday school teacher says, wait a minute. The service of ordination allows a member of the assembled congregation to identify a "crime or impediment" to ordination. And noting the impropriety of two men raising a daughter either to be a "breeder" or to be indoctrinated in the "life," this parishioner writes the bishop to object calling this perversion an "impediment," and noting this bishop's insouciance to claims of sexual impropriety by homosexual priests committed to her charge. Being too diplomatic to appear in person and rain on the parade of this ordination on gay pride weekend no less, this parishioner asks the letter to be read at the service and placed in the diocesan archives.

And the bishop writes back in two lines saying that she "hold[s] a different conviction from [the parishioner's]," concluding that she wishes the parishioner "well," and signing "Sincerely."

And people wonder why The Episcopal Church has fallen so far from the holy Word made Flesh.

David Duggan is a retired attorney living in Chicago. He is an occasional columnist to Virtueonline