An Abomination Unto God

“JESUS NEVER ORDAINED SODOMITES, NEITHER SHOULD THE CHURCH”; ran the inscription on a placard in front of the Anglican Church in St Albans, (a small town just outside London). The demonstration was in protest against the installation of Dr Jeffrey John as the Dean of St Albans. How trite these assertion and sentiment seems to me.

St Albans is well known to Historians as the scene of Boudicca’s finest triumph against the Romans. The Iceni Queen had raided Camulodunum, (Colchester) and London and had put 70,000 Roman Legionnaires to the sword. Nero panicked and had sought to evacuate Britain. Disaster was narrowly averted by the steely resolve of Suetonius Paulinus.

I am not a Bible quoting Christian, neither do I espouse to the doctrines of Jesus. I happen to be liberal in most aspects of life, but I am of the opinion that homosexuality is immoral and should be returned to the statute books of England and Wales as an offense under the law.

The church as the custodian of values and morals should set the highest examples for others to emulate. Is it not written in the Bible that homosexuality is an abomination unto God? In Leviticus, Chapter 18, verses 22~25, it says as follows; “No man is to have sexual relations with another man; God abhors that”.

In 17th century England, homosexuality was a criminal offence punishable with death. Lord Byron, (who was once described by the writer, Caroline Lamb as mad, bad and dangerous to know) fled England to Greece because he was afraid of been arrested for his homosexual and depraved acts.

The Irish playwright and poet, Oscar Wilde was a guest of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria in Reading Jail for his dalliance with Lord Alfred Douglas. His trial in the criminal courts at the Old Bailey became a cause celebre in English jurisprudence. The Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis were written in contemplation of daily life in an English jail.

A passage in his semi autobiography, De Profundis compares his immoral and abnormal behavior as akin to; “feasting with panthers” and in his first trial for sodomy in the criminal crown court, he had described homosexuality as follows;

“The ‘love that dare not speak its name’ in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan……and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare”.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron has given his support to the consecration of openly gay clerics as Bishops in the Church of England.

He has adopted a Liberal approach to homosexuality in order to distance the Tories from the old accusation of been the “nasty” party and to show solidarity with his coalition partners, (The Liberal Democrats), many of whose members are openly homosexual.

Cameron has promoted gay candidates in the Conservative party and recently hosted a gay pride party at No 10 Downing Street.

Dr John is on a shortlist of candidates been considered for appointment to the position of Bishop of Southwark. If he is given the nod, the Monarch will be the last stumbling block to his appointment to the much revered post.

Jeffrey John was barred from becoming the Bishop of Reading in 2003 over his relationship with another man. At a meeting chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, he was approved as a candidate for the Bishop of Southwark.

John married another man, Rev Grant Holmes in 2006 in a civil partnership ceremony.

Homosexuality runs like a cancer through the pores of the Church of England. A former Archbishop of York, Dr Hope in the 1990’s once described his sexuality as “a grey area” whilst another compared the resurrection of Jesus to “a trick and the conjuring of bones”.

The clergyman, Christopher Bryant, now a Labor MP was defrocked for posing nude in a gay porn site. He was later made a minister for Europe during the Brown Administration.

In America, matters have followed a similar turn for the worse. In 2003, the Episcopal Church anointed the openly gay and non celibate Gene Robinson to a Bishopric and last year, Mary Glassport, a Lesbian who cohabits in sin with her partner was made an assistant Bishop to the diocese of Los Angeles.

The relaxation of morals and the appointment of homosexuals to important positions in the COE has created rifts and divisions in the ranks of the congregation and amongst 77 million Anglican followers around the world.

African members under the mercurial Bishop, Akinola of the Nigerian diocese have broken ranks and threatened to create a new church which respects the principles of marriage and family values as stipulated under the Bible. Rowan Williams had to summon a special synod of the COE to placate the situation.

The Catholic Church of Rome has not fared any better. The Vatican is been buffeted by lurid tales of pedophilia and corruption involving prominent bishops and priests. In Belgium, a Bishop was arrested and a summit summoned by the church to discuss sex abuse claims against priests was raided by the police.

The Bishops had their mobile phones seized and documents and memoranda were confiscated. The crypts of two dead cardinals were drilled into in search of incriminating materials. The Vatican issued a statement condemning the actions of the police and comparing them to events which occurred under communist countries.

Now the Belgian police has launched an investigation into allegations of threats to the lives of the witnesses and Magistrates investigating the whole affair.

I remember calling for the removal of Ratzinger in an earlier blog for incompetence and complicity in the child sex abuse scandals affecting the church in Rome. I still stand by that assertion. The chap should do the decent thing and fall on his sword.

It is quite striking that he has twice venerated an earlier predecessor, Celestine V who reigned for five months in 1294 and was removed for incompetence by Boniface V111 who held him prisoner in the castle of Monte Fumone where he died in 1296.

Ratzinger lacks the necessary gravitas to lead and command an army of more than 2 billion followers. He is old, (84) and lacks the reforming skills needed to put the church in good shape. I have the gnawing suspicion that he is in ‘office’ and not in ‘power’.

He can not move against the conservative and destructive wing of the Catholic power structure, because he is afraid of meeting the fate of Pope Paul VI, (who died in mysterious circumstances).

I feel dreadfully sorry for God, (although I doubt if he really exists at all). His Kingdom on Earth has been turned into a den of thieves, scoundrels, sodomites and pedophiles. The custodians of morals have become the corrupters and evil holds sway in all aspects and facets of life.

Morality has been turned askew, (to be good is to be bad and to be bad is to be good). Imagine the surreal scene of having to go to Confession to a priest who has just emerged from the Refectory after just having sexually abused an altar boy working for the church. Does it not make your stomach churn in disgust?

Even as I write this blog, the molestations continue unabated. I wipe the tears from my eyes, not out of compassion for the sex abuse victims, but at the cowardice of the world who by keeping silent are complicit in the whole affair of tyranny and evil.

Is it not written in the Bible that Christ will come again? I pray constantly for him to come, not because that I am a Christian, but for him to rescue the victims of the sex abuse scandals buffeting the church of the Messiah and to save man from himself. AMEN!

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