Accommodating homosexism: Will RC's follow Anglicans down the primrose path?

A courier arrived at my door yesterday wearing a tux and holding a tray with three items on it: a telegram, a newspaper, and a martini. "You'll need it," he said he was supposed to tell me, about the martini.

The telegram was from our friend, Guy Noir - Private Eye, who regularly does a good bit of sleuthing for us. In part, it read as follows:

Only God's prevenient grace will keep the Catholic Church from seeing this same scenario duplicated almost word for word within its own walls. Note that while no official reversal of doctrine is admitted, it also is quite obviously reversed in effect. What is being witnessed is a wholesale redefinition of the idea of morality and revelation. We have "ideals" and we have "reality," and ideals are so otherworldly they are almost irrelevant.

Also note that Welby is an Anglican [counterpart of Pope] Francis in that he is marketed as a man of the people and an "evangelical" Anglican who talks about sin and the devil. Woo hoo! Of course the devil is here, in the details... And no, this is not from The Onion.

The newspaper was a copy of The Telegraph with the following headline blazed across the front page: "Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby says gay marriage is ‘great’" (May 14, 2014). The article began:

The Church of England has been forced to reaffirm its opposition to same-sex marriage after the Archbishop of Canterbury appeared to suggest that he thinks it is “great”.

In his first interview with a gay publication, the Most Rev Justin Welby, told PinkNews that the Church had to accept that same-sex marriage is now the law in England and Wales after securing overwhelming support in Parliament.

He said it was “right and proper” that same-sex marriage has now come into force, adding: “And that’s great.”

His comments came as he offered an olive branch to the gay community, publishing new rules for Church of England schools aimed at stamping out homophobic bullying.

Lambeth Palace insisted that despite the initiative, the Archbishop remained opposed in principle to same-sex marriage and that he had been speaking about the right of Parliament to change the law when he used the word “great”.

Then came the second part of Guy Noir's telegraph message, which contained a URL to a website and the following:

Now THIS might be from The Onion. But as an item of satire it could easily be mistaken for anything but, in either communion. I think Kasper might have ghost-written it! And notice that for all the talk of conservative obsession over homosexuality, it is not conservatives who keep placing it on the front page, but homosexauls, liberals, and accommodating conservatives. In fact, it is now close to impossible to find any converge of conservative attitudes towards homosexuality. But hey, what culture war?

I typed the URL into my browser, and here's what came up: David W. Virtue, "Episcopal Church Declares ‘Week of Unhappiness’ over 'Gay' Bishop Divorce" (VirtueOnline.Org, May 6, 2014):

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori today declared The Episcopal Church would recognize a ‘Week of Unhappiness’ to be enshrined in "Lesser Feasts and Fasts" to honor the broken marriage of Bishop Gene Robinson and his beloved “husband” Mark following their much publicized split.

“I believe the king of Bhutan is right to say that gross national happiness is far more important than the gross national product, and The Episcopal Church’s gross national grossness needs to be honored as well,” opined Jefferts Schori as she wiped a tear from her eye at a press conference.

Read more >> [Advisory: off-color humor]

[Hat tip to JM]