The Anglican Covenant has raised the ire of liberals because, they say, it will forbid “new developments” create an un-Anglican dogma, be too centralised and – this is my favourite – hinder “mission”.

Some of the whining is emanating from the Modern Church and some from the Inclusive Church and there is a full page advertisement denouncing it.

Without a change of heart within Western Anglicanism, the Covenant itself is not going to solve anything. For example, the Anglican Church of Canada has promised to study it for the next six years – if it is still around in six years; but no-one seriously believes that this is anything other than a tactic to delay its inevitable rejection in the hope that,by then,  most of the conservative opposition will have left for greener pastures.

The liberal fuss about the Covenant reminds me of the Bloomsbury Group who, for all their lofty ideals of re-inventing literature, politics, gender and aesthetics, simply wanted to subvert contemporary mores so that they could be free to copulate with anything that moved. And so it goes with the priestly protestations against the Covenant: it is really all about sex. Dogma should be subservient to sodomy – it’s as simple as that.