If the Church of England was a private club, I would have resigned my membership already.

As an institution, its credibility is rightly under the most intense scrutiny.

And at a time when the Church has never been more in need of strong leadership and clear guidance, it has an Archbishop of Canterbury who appears paralysed by the contemporary disease known as 'do nothing and the problem will go away'.

It has clergy and congregations from the 38 worldwide provinces of the Anglican Communion dangerously split by cant and hypocrisy about the place of openly homosexual priests in the church.

My own position is unambiguous. A man's sexuality is irrelevant if he is good at doing his job. And by all accounts, Canon Jeffrey John who will be the new Bishop of Reading is a fine priest.

How could the young man from the Welsh valleys have known what international chaos he would eventually generate when he started his loving, homosexual relationship with his partner at an Oxford theological college 27 years ago.

Now as the newly appointed Bishop and still in the same gay relationship, Jeffrey John has brought the Church of England to a point of crisis which some are predicting could threaten its future - at least in its present form.

Well, perhaps in the long term, that will be no bad thing.

For at such a moment in the Church's affairs, when the whole Anglican Communion is calling out for the committed voice of firm leadership about the acceptability, or otherwise, of openly gay priests, what is Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury doing? He is sitting on the fence with his head in his hands.

Is he prepared to fight for the rights of such priests, who are good at their job, to have a future in the Church of England or not?

All we know is that he is liberal rather than traditional when it comes to reforming the church's attitudes towards homosexuality.

His now notorious comment on the position of Bishop Jeffrey John must go down in the history of Anglicanism as one of the most shamefully inadequate responses ever made by a leader in a moment of crisis.

'You should know,' said Dr Williams, 'it is an appointment I have neither sought to promote, nor to obstruct.'

It may well be that Dr Williams is displaying his awareness of the dangers of schism if he pushes for radical reform.

The intervention of senior figures within the Anglican Communion from places such as Nigeria, Australia, the West Indies and Texas, as well as Bishops and other clergy in Britain can leave him in no doubt. No one said strong leadership was easy.

However it is a fact of life that the church has always been an attractive calling for homosexuals.

Many gay priests are sensitive, dedicated men, compelled to remain reticent about their sexuality.

In a liberal, open society, why?