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Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast. I'm Damien Thompson.

My guest today is a former Anglican chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen. Dr Gavin Ashton. He left the

official Church of England in 2017 in protest at what he saw as its failure to defend

the essentials of the faith and Christian culture. He's accused the C.A.V. of swallowing

wholesale and agenda of political correctness.

He was briefly a bishop in a breakaway Anglican church, but just before Christmas he converted

to Catholicism. Now, some people, including me, would say that's a brave thing to do right

now at the very moment that Pope Francis is

gen reflecting to secularism. But our conversation today isn't going to be about the Catholic

Church. We've had enough of those, but rather what's happening in the Church of England.

I've been surprised, even shocked by the behaviour of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who seemed such a promising

appointment for Orthodox Christians. He came from the doctrinally Orthodox Holy Trinity Brompton.

He was previously an executive in a city oil firm. So the last thing I expected were partisan

left-wing interventions in political debates

and even jumping on the transgender bandwagon.

Wellby's just worn schools against having boys and girls' uniforms

because it might cause problems for transgender pupils.

So, Gavin, why has this apparently almost total surrender to the

secular zeitgeist overtaken the Church of England so quickly? And under Justin Welby, of all people.

...