Are you here because someone else insisted that you be here? Are you here today, shall we say, under protest? Are you here today because surely you could be nowhere else? Are you here, but perhaps, you're not quite sure why? For whatever reasons we find ourselves together in this place on this day, it is right that we should be here. For this is the day when the church will make its most fundamental and audacious claim of all.

"The Holy Father coined the expression 'culture of death' to refer to the tendency of modern society to depreciate the inviolable dignity of human life," he told ZENIT. "The Schiavo case illustrates Pope John Paul's concerns that human persons would be valued more for their utility and 'quality of life' than for their inherent worth."

"For decades," said the Rt. Rev. Christopher Epting, deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations for the Episcopal Church, "our conversations have revolved around the balance between the centralized authority structure of the Roman Catholic Church and the more dispersed authority in Anglicanism. Our current tensions are and discussions across the Anglican Communion provide a contemporary case study which surely has wider implications across the Body of Christ today."

Not that the Council of Nicaea was as decisive as it is usually billed, either. It took almost 60 years for Nicaea's influence to solidify. In the meantime, the main heresy condemned at the council, Arianism, became ascendant and almost triumphed over orthodoxy. Even the Nicene Creed recited today wasn't really adopted until 381, 56 years after the council ended.