We arrived early enough so that I could show my fellow travelers around the as-of-yet-to-be fully completed Cathedral before a Sunday service was to begin.

My Evangelical friends were duly impressed with the size and scope, beauty and grandeur, flying buttresses and cavernous undercrofts, vaulting cloisters and the richly detailed carved tympanums of the National Cathedral, as well as its interesting history and importance in the national spiritual life of the country. It was quite a tour.

Then it was time for an early Sunday morning service. The soft prelude emitting from the organ masked the Sabbath day sounds of a gathering congregation in the Great Nave -- the shuffling of feet, the scrape of hymnals and prayer books, the rustle of bulletins, the muted hum of whispers and murmurs.

I was so excited. I wanted my conservative Evangelical friends to witness the fullness and beauty of an Episcopal Eucharistic liturgy it all its magnificent glory ... music, vestments, the language of the Book of Common Prayer liturgy. We had traveled a long way by car from central Florida and specifically planned to visit the National Cathedral as a part of our overall trip to the NRB confab.

For me, showing off the National Cathedral was more important than exploring the Capitol or touring the White House, which ultimately we did.

Finally the procession lined up. The first notes of the opening hymn were pealing from the majestic organ and the procession stepped off lead by the crucifer flanked by torch bearers. As the colorfully vested choristers and then clergy passed hidden in the midst was a priestess ... a woman priest ... an ordained female cleric ...

I turned to my friends and urgently whispered: "We have to leave ... now!" As we left I apologized profusely to my fellow travelers for unknowingly bringing them into a worship service where there was a female clergy person. As conservative Evangelicals it was as unacceptable to them as it was to me. I was overwhelmed.

Since that day I have never again stepped foot in the National Cathedral although I have been in Washington, DC many times. All the while through the years I have witnessed the Cathedral fall from its lofty perch of spiritual leadership to religious decadence and decay -- compromising Gospel sensibilities with a Darth Vader gargoyle; jettisoning Christian tradition with a guest transgendered preacher; and engaging in heretical worship with an Islamic Jumah prayer service ... What next?

I am more than ashamed. I am horrified and appalled. A cathedral, any cathedral, is ultimately built to honor and glorify God. The National Cathedral is failing in that sacred task through its embrace of the culture and lowering itself to societal norms, by trading the secular for the holy, the common for the consecrated.

All I can do is fall on my knees and weep pleading with God to show His mercy in the face of such dishonoring triviality as a much mighty house of prayer is reduced to an irreligious den of secularized twaddle.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline