A hero of progressives everywhere, unafraid to speak the truth as he saw it and a pastoral presence in the Church, the Very Revd. Colin Slee, Dean of the Southwark Cathedral, UK, has died.
From london se 1
The Diocese of Southwark issued a statement today to say that The Very Revd Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark, “died peacefully at his home surrounded by his family” in the early hours of Thursday morning. He was 65.
Colin Slee was appointed as provost of Southwark in 1994 and became Dean in 2000 after a standardisation of cathedral organisational structures across England. He was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2001.
He had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
The cathedral’s flag was flying at half-mast on Thursday as the news was announced.
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Canon Nunn described the Dean as someone who had stood up for truth even at a huge personal cost to himself.
Stephen Bates offers his thoughts about Slee and his work in The Guardian:
Colin Slee, the dean of Southwark and one of the doughtiest and most outspoken liberals in the Church of England, died overnight, within a few weeks of suffering the galloping onset of cancer. When I last saw him, a couple of weeks ago in hospital, he told me all passion was spent and he felt he no longer had any enemies within the church, but I guess had he still been as hale as he was a few months ago and able to attend this week’s general synod in London, of which he remained a member, he would have snorted in derision and despair at yesterday’s goings on in the Anglican communion.
The Telegraph notes:
I
nclusiveness should, he believed, be at the heart of the Church’s life and this was reflected in the large Sunday morning congregation in Southwark Cathedral, where young and old, black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight mingled in a lively community. His biblically based sermons were thought-provoking, and usually related to some current issue in either Church or society.