A spokesman for one conservative Church of England group, The Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, has told a British newspaper that his church welcomes homosexual people, “but we want them to repent and be changed.”

His critics say his view “goes against Christ’s gospel of love and compassion”, calling it “homophobia”, and claiming that homosexual people cannot change anyway, their tendencies being something one is born with and that “God made them that way”.

This last argument is a problem.

Suppose you had a tendency to kleptomania and were caught shop-lifting. We could debate forever whether your tendency was something you were born with.

That wouldn’t change the fact that, regardless of all that, you must change your behaviour — for the good of society and for the good of your own soul.

Queen Elizabeth, official head of the Church of England, has written to Nazir-Ali’s group saying she “understands their concerns about the future of the Anglican Communion”.

What would Mother Mary MacKillop have said?

She would have said that what Anglicans need, first and foremost, is this: they need to convert and become Roman Catholics.