Sex is a stumbling block for Anglicans on the road to Rome

From the London Telegraph-

Our Church of England bishops can be such flirts. They were at it again over the weekend, as traditionalists met to consider Pope Benedict XVI's bombshell decision to welcome disaffected Anglo-Catholics, even the married ones, into Roman Catholicism, while keeping some of their Anglican ways.

Since the Vatican's announcement last week, Anglo-Catholic bishops and priests have been lifting the hems of their copes to show Rome a glimpse of silk-gartered ankle. But they're coy and demure, too; they make it clear that they'll want a decent dowry from the Archbishop of Canterbury before they throw themselves into the arms of Rome. Perhaps a few well-appointed rectories and some beautiful churches. A bit of cash would be nice, too.

But property matters and theology are not the only stumbling blocks on the road to Rome. There is another elephant in the vestry. It is one that is not spoken about openly; it is suppressed by a potent mixture of political correctness and traditional church hypocrisy. But it's high time it was aired. It is this: a very significant proportion, perhaps even a majority in some dioceses, of Anglo-Catholic clergy are homosexual men. Everyone with a ministry in the Church of England knows this.

I haven't conducted an empirical survey, but from briefings at Synod, to dinner parties in Sussex, I have spent much time in the company of my Anglo-Catholic brothers and, frankly, I'm invariably the only straight in the village. Now, before you accuse me of competing with Jan Moir to be most controversial columnist of the year; and before Stephen Fry reaches for his BlackBerry to Tweet how "loathsome" I am; and before tens of thousands of outraged liberals weigh down our returning, recalcitrant postmen with mail sacks for the Press Complaints Commission, let me make something abundantly clear. Unlike the untimely death of popster Stephen Gately, sexual orientation is highly relevant to this ecclesiological issue.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/georgepitcher/6435453/Sex-is-a-stumbling-block-for-Anglicans-on-the-road-to-Rome.html