The opposite is also true. Frequently, people do the wrong thing for the right reasons. An impoverished man may steal food in order to provide for a destitute mother. We've all heard of deeply confused teen-agers who commit suicide because they can't imagine going through life as a burden to their parents. Then there is the more complex case of the person who commits perjury to spare a loved one from the consequences of their actions. Stealing, suicide, and perjury are all wrong.

By all accounts, he is a decent man, kind and thoughtful. They say he isn't much of a manager or administrator. He has a scholarly bent. He is obviously drawn to the mystical elements of faith. I could see him a chaplain at a school for boys or a theological college.

He did affirm the autonomy of the ACC as if this excused unwillingness to be bound today by the Solemn Declaration of 1893, the ACC’s foundational document, and the refusal to take seriously the remonstrances of many Anglican leaders. He showed readiness to let what, for him, is now the established policy of blessing same-sex unions disrupt full communion within the Anglican fellowship, and did not seem to see this as an unhappy outcome.

What problem?

Why, you may well ask, was the consecration of Gene Robinson such a Communion-shattering event, and why does the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church now feel obliged to make gestures and concessions towards the rest of the Anglican Communion which it has not felt obliged to make heretofore?

These are questions for which it is hard to find a coherent answer, save only for reasons of cynical political manoeuvre.