At least 65 gay CoI clergy since WW2 – claim
THERE have been at least 65 gay Church of Ireland clergy since the Second World War, a retired Anglican minister has claimed.
The Rev Mervyn Kingston’s comments come in a chapter he contributed to a book published by the pro-gay lobby group Changing Attitude Ireland ahead of a major Church of Ireland conference next month which will discuss the church’s position on homosexual clergy.
The book also contains comments from the bishop who approved the first civil partnership involving a Church of Ireland minister, something that has thrown the denomination into turmoil.
In a chapter which was first published a decade ago, the Rt Rev Michael Burrows said that he turns “a blind eye” to cohabitation of his friends, something which evangelical Anglicans believe is sinful and shows the distance between the two main wings of the church.
In his contribution to the book Moving Forward Together: Homosexuality and the Church of Ireland, Mr Kingston said there were same-sex relationships among evangelical Anglicans in Ireland, some of whom had since entered civil partnerships and received church blessings.
The minister, who himself entered a civil partnership after retiring from ministry, said that a study which he conducted in 2008 showed that there were many clergy in same-sex relationships.
“My main method for counting the presence of gay clergy is through direct personal inquiries to gay clergy who are known to me,” he said.
“As a clergyman I have been privileged to provide a small measure of pastoral care to gays and lesbians, including clergy, for the past 30 years.
“In 2008 I was able to record at least 65 gay clergy as having served in the Church of Ireland since World War Two.
“These clergymen had on average each served in four parishes. By noting from Crockford’s Clerical Directory and other sources all the individual parishes where these gay clergy have come from, served in and retired to, what becomes clear is that by my reckoning a majority (235 of 464) of parishes in the Church of Ireland have had an experience of a gay clergyman in the period from the Second World War.”
Mr Kingston said this showed that the issue of gay clergy was “not a distant or abstract issue but part of the reality of parish life in Ireland”.
He said that in the case of the 65 clergy he identified as gay “of course the parishes did not know about their sexuality”.
And Mr Kingston reasoned that as most clergy speak at services outside their own parishes “it would not be an exaggeration to claim that it is likely that the large majority of parishioners have heard a gay clergyman preach”.
He said: “More recently a number of gay clergy have become publicly known throughout the church, such as Dean Tom Gordon, who is supported by both his local congregation and by his bishop.”
Dean Gordon’s bishop, the Rt Rev Michael Burrows, contributes another chapter (first published in 2001) to the book.
The article, written prior to his appointment as a bishop, said: “The fact is that most of us, clergy included, turn a pretty blind eye to the cohabiting lifestyle of very many of our friends, to the extent that those who choose what Lambeth would term ‘abstinence’ prior to marriage, can feel strangely unaffirmed by fellow Christians.
“Now this is all very well, but why then do many of us then come down like tons of moral bricks on homosexual couples who are living together?
“Have we a particular attitude problem, verging something on homophobia, to the private activities of consenting gay adults?”
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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