The Church Times on the wedding: Anglicans overseas who do not know the legal force of the clergy freehold might be convinced that the Archbishops are about to crack the whip in some way. But the simple truth is that a cleric who holds the freehold … is at liberty to make up his or her mind about the relative merits of various pronouncements on theology or ethics.
The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has rightly recognised that celibacy is a vocation to which many gay people are simply not called. Which is why, it strikes me, the church ought to be offering gay people a basis for monogamous relationships that are permanent, faithful and stable.
The Rev. Dr. Giles Fraser
‘You describe the result as “familiar words reordered and reconfigured carrying new meanings.” I note that the order of service, which I have now received, includes the phrase “With this ring I thee bind, with my body I thee worship”. At first sight this seems to break the House of Bishops Guidelines….’
Updated We’ve raised the question of what consequences there might be for the Rev. Martin Dudley, the officiant at he calls the blessing of “a
The rector faces discipline after becoming the first clergyman to conduct a gay ‘marriage’ in an Anglican church. Last night Bishop of London, the Rt. Rev Richard Chartres, ordered an urgent inquiry into the ceremony, which was held in one of the capital’s oldest churches last month.
The service was conducted by the Reverend Martin Dudley, who told the BBC he had not broken any instructions issued by the bishops. “It wasn’t a gay church wedding, it was the blessing of two people who have contracted a civil partnership. … “They wanted more than I was able to give – they wanted something more like a wedding. I was not willing to do that because I believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.”
The Most Rev Henry Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda, said that the ceremony was “blasphemous.” He called on Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to take decisive action if the Anglican Church were not to “disintegrate”.
In what is apparently the first public same-sex wedding in the Church of England, two gay priests were married at London’s oldest church, using a ritual taken substantially from the Book of Common Prayer.
Archbishops Rowan Williams and John Sentamu have released the text of a proposed resolution on the consecration of female bishops in the Church of England.
The ministry division of the Church of England has released a report indicating that as many as half of the current parish clergy are unable