Chateau Lloyd

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has submitted his resignation.

The precipitating event was the repeated failure of the Church of England to take action against sexual predators, one of whom was close to Welby and preyed on more than a hundred boys and young men.

There are couple of interesting elements here.  The first is that gay predators are not unique to the Catholic Church.  It is often argued (generally by Protestants) that Catholic priests turn to pederasty out of sexual frustration, but of course Anglican clergy are free to marry.  Protestant ministers also their share of sex scandals, so this is just another refutation of that argument.

The other is that Welby has presided over a massive schism within the Anglican Communion.  He has essentially be excommunicated by his co-religionists, and the fact that this was no career ending and that he felt no compulsion to quit his duties in remorse speaks volumes.

Then there was the ongoing scandal of the Church of England seeming to renounce its evangelical mission.  Apparently the Africans were better off pagan.

Much is made of how Pope Francis has sown confusion and discredited himself through protecting corrupt priests while persecution the Traditional Latin Mass, but Welby stands in a class of his own.  Only the irrelevance of the Church of England has kept him from widespread scorn.  He is largely an obscure figure in public life, a non-entity in British politics and a religious curiosity.

It is widely assumed that his successor will be a woman, which will be both Stunning and Brave as well as totally isolating the Church of England theologically.  All talk of closing the schism with Rome or affiliating with the Eastern Orthodox Church will come to end.

The Church of England has become something of an anti-Christian cult, a grouping that uses the same vestments and iconography in mockery of the true Church.  Let us home the ill-begotten child of Henry VIII will finally pass away soon.