I applaud the editorial opposing the revision of Canon III.8.1 to make the ordinations of women priests mandatory as such a canon would be not only bad law but worse theology.

However, it is very Anglican to use political power to bludgeon one's opponents into submission. Archbishop Cranmer was forced to recant his evangelical views when catholics regained power under Bloody Mary, and he went to the stake anyway. The Oxford fathers had to fight for even a simple cross and two candlesticks on the altar. Our church has rarely followed Jesus' admonition about loving one another and servant ministry, but at least traditionalists today do not have to fear being burned or drowned. It is unlikely the Christian Church would have lasted two milleniums if the Jewish and gentile Christians had not resolved the issue of circumcision in the first century.

The issue is really discerning the will of God. Proponents of ordination of women focus on 20th-century ideas about justice for women, but with 700 million Roman Catholics, 300 million Orthodox and much of the Anglican Communion still unconvinced on this issue, the existence of the support of the Holy Spirit for this practice is not exactly self-evident.

Is the Episcopal Church just a politically correct modernist sect, or are we part of the Church Catholic that is God's chosen instrument to impart salvation?

Charles C. Wicks

Elkhart, Ind.