The first openly gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, has called for the Roman Catholic church's attitude to homosexuals to be confronted.
The Bishop of New Hampshire said the Vatican's ban on ordaining gay men was "vile", in a speech in London.
He received a standing ovation after his speech, in which he spoke of how he had faced prejudice in his role.
Some Anglican conservatives had called for the St-Martin-in-the-Fields church venue to be changed to a secular one.
Bishop Robinson said: "We are seeing so many Roman Catholics joining the church.
"Pope Ratzinger may be the best thing that ever happened to the Episcopal Church."
He continued: "I find it so vile that they think they are going to end the child abuse scandal by throwing out homosexuals from seminaries.
"It is an act of violence that needs to be confronted."
What the Catholic Church has been doing for centuries, namely excluding men who cannot make a commitment to live chaste lives, is violence that needs to be confronted, then the Catholic Church has been threatened.
Robison is in his denomination a leader of 16,000 Christians according to his web site. Did he just call them to jihad against the Catholic Church?
Psychologically, it seems an odd projection to call the insistence upon chastity to be vile. Since 81 percent of the child and young adult sexual abuse was homosexual and the incidents of sexual misconduct by clergy with adults were also overwhelmingly homsexual, it might be a good beginning of the end.(see this summary of the John Jay study)
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