Vancouver Province
for June 23, 2000

Dear Michael and John – I hope you, the Anglican Primate for Canada and the Pope, won’t mind me addressing you so familiarly but, you see, I’ve been calling our Lord by His first name since I was a child. And this is kind of a down to earth sort of letter.

Now I must confess, as an Anglican, I sort of have that feeling that I’m really a Catholic who, like the prodigal son, is yearning to return and have that fatted calf killed. But I’ve thought about it – a lot – and the answer is that I don’t want to return and indeed won’t return to the Catholic fold.

Now I know the history – Henry VIII wanting an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon on the grounds that she’d been married to his deceased brother Arthur. Seems that this only occurred to him after Catherine couldn’t produce a son and heir. Yes, I know that Henry wasn’t really a Protestant and indeed had gained the title of Defender of the Faith. But things evolve, gentlemen, and all any of us are trying to do is find a better way to be good Christians.

But you know, that’s been a difficult task. And my priest has put it well – whether it originates with him or not I can’t say – when he draws the distinction between God’s church and the "corporate church", being that made by man. And while I can’t expect you holy gentlemen to necessarily agree with me, I’m with him. I look at the Mother Church and my own version as nothing more than the clubhouses in which I seek the Church of God. And if there is an amalgamation of the Canterbury clubhouse and the Roman clubhouse I’m outta here.

I have found peace and quiet in my version of Christianity – to paraphrase the late humourist Will Rogers, I’m a member of no organized religion, I’m an Anglican. My church asks of me very little now by way of catechism – only that I love God, and my neighbour as myself – and, of course, accept Jesus Christ as my saviour.

Now this doesn’t mean that Anglicans don’t have problems with the clubhouse rules – such as the role therein of women and gays – but it settles these disputes by consulting the members. Now I grant you that they don’t exactly abide by one person one vote – but they do respond to the membership.

Let me tell you both the five places where I part company with the Roman Church – and I see no prospect for compromise.

First, I cannot and will not accept the concept of Holy Father with or without the Doctrine of Infallibility. It’s just not on for me. I am prepared to accept a hierarchy in the running of my clubhouse but not a leader who must be accepted as anything more than a fallible human who just happens to have climbed to the top of the church’s greasy pole.

Second, I cannot for a moment accept the doctrine of transubstantiation which holds that the wine and flesh of communion actually become our Saviour’s blood and flesh. This is just silly – no more than that – no matter what sort of metaphysical mumbo jumbo who explain it by.

Thirdly, I cannot accept any diminished role of women in my church. Of course the apostles were all men – it was a male dominated hierarchical society in which Jesus lived and taught. He at no time fought the politics of the day and nowhere that I can find did he condemn women to an inferior role in His church.

Fourthly, though a raging heterosexual myself, I find little justification in the Bible and none at all in Christ’s teachings condemning homosexuals to a lesser status in His church.

Fifthly, I cannot find any justification for injunctions against birth control and find highly hypocritical Catholic notions that limiting birth by the "rhythm" method is acceptable but by a condom a sin.

I am not anti-Catholic – I accept the right of any person to believe what he wishes and come together in groups of likeminded people. My only point here is to deal with the question of whether I could become, by devolution or otherwise, a member of the Roman Catholic faith and the answer is that I cannot.

If union comes to pass, I will simply look for another comfortable pew.