From the National Post:

Just a week after rioting and mass arrests rocked the city’s core, yesterday Toronto was the scene of mass inclusiveness, welcome and friendship as huge crowds welcomed Queen Elizabeth II, just ahead of a welcome for up to a million attending the annual gay and lesbian Pride Day parade.

Her Royal Highness, who wore a blue and white dress, and a robin-blue straw hat with a ribbon, sat in the front row of the Cathedral Church of St. James this morning as Dean Douglas Stoute knit the day’s two themes deftly together with a sermon calling for the Anglican Church to hold a “respectful, inclusive dialogue with all God’s people,” adding, “this is not easy.”

Also in the packed church, which boasts Canada’s largest steeple, were the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his wife, Terry McGuinty.

“The church is undergoing a rebirth,” the Very Reverend Stoute told the congregation. “It is at times destructive.” He noted that some in the Anglican church have sought to defend traditional biblical ideas of who belongs and who does not, a reference to a schism in the Anglican church over the blessing of same-sex unions.

“A church grounded by inclusiveness and openness is becoming more relevant,” he said.
“Polarization within Anglicanism is not new,” Rev. Stoute added, noting the 16th-century division between Catholicism and Protestantism and the 19th century dispute between high church and low church.

“Throughout history Anglicanism has sought to find a middle road,” he added. “It is a recognition that we do not have all the answers. It requires that we let go of pride and reach out to listen with open minds and open hearts.”

I’m tempted the think that the Very Reverend Stoute has been over-imbibing in the drink of his namesake.

“A church grounded by inclusiveness and openness is becoming more relevant”; never in its entire existence has the Anglican Church been less relevant or more ignored. When it isn’t ignored, it is ridiculed for abandoning its own beliefs in favour of galloping as fast as it can on the treadmill of trendiness like a demented hamster in its wheel.

“The church is undergoing a rebirth,”. That must be why the number of people attending church has fallen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 650,000 in 2001 to 325,000 in 2009. This rebirth bears a remarkable resemblance to a death rattle.

““Throughout history Anglicanism has sought to find a middle road,” he added. “It is a recognition that we do not have all the answers. It requires that we let go of pride and reach out to listen with open minds and open hearts.” The new evangelism: we have no idea what to believe; do you? Why not join us on Sunday and we can all wonder what it’s all about together.

The poor Queen – with any luck she had jet lag and fell asleep.