Nov 8, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Catholic League president Bill Donohue said the assessment made by Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire this past weekend—that many Catholics are turning to the Anglican Church as a result of Pope Benedict’s pontificate and the Church’s stand against homosexuals in the seminary—is wrong.
The Episcopalian bishop “is profoundly ignorant of what has been happening to his own church,” said Donohue, who pointed to David Shiflett’s “Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity” and Thomas Reeves’ “The Empty Church: Does Organized Religion Matter Anymore.”
These books demonstrate that just the opposite is happening, said Donohue. They state that people in the United States are leaving liberal churches that allow the ordination of homosexual bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, to join more conservative churches.
Bishop Robinson is the first openly homosexual priest in the Episcopalian Church to be ordained a bishop. His ordination and the blessing of same-sex unions in an Anglican diocese in Canada have created division within the Worldwide Anglican Communion.