Pope to Anglicans: You divide, we conquer

In a wide ranging appeal this week to those who would discriminate against gays and women, Pope Benedict scrambled to capitalize on recent divisions within the Episcopal Church.

A new canonical entity will allow groups of Anglicans “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” Cardinal William Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here.

One observer interpreted the comments this way: "What the Cardinal is saying is simple. The Pope will take anyone into the Catholic Church, they don't really even have to be Catholic, as long as they hate teh gays and love the patriarchy."

Cardinal Levada said the Vatican created the structure in response to many requests from Anglicans over the years since the Church of England first ordained women in the 1970s, and more recently when it faced what he called “a very difficult question” — the ordination of openly gay clergy and the blessing of homosexual unions.

A very difficult question? Come on, Cardinal Levada, how could that possibly be the case? The Pope says god doesn't want gays serving him or the church. The Pope doesn't want women preaching the holy word. The Pope is never wrong about anything. What's so difficult about that?