James Pike (1913-1969) had an enormous importance. Born and raised a Catholic (and believing he might have a vocation), Pike lost his faith studying under the Jesuits at the University of Santa Clara in the early 1930s. Moving on to UCLA, USC and Yale Law School, he served in naval intelligence during the Second World War. He had been received into the Episcopal Church in 1938. After the war, Pike decided to enter the Episcopal ministry and was ordained in 1946. Three years later, he was made Episcopal chaplain at New York’s Columbia University. On rather spurious historical grounds he claimed the post was a “Royal Peculiar”,
subject only to the Queen and not to the Episcopal Bishop of New York. Given the radical nature of his sermons, this deception was useful; it did not prevent him being appointed dean of the Cathedral of St John the Divine. Thence he fulminated against the Catholic Church’s opposition to birth control.