We remember Jeffery John as a being selected to be a bishop by Rowan Williams not long after he took office and then rescinded the invitation. Ruth Gledhill reports (and George Conger reports here) that he's back.UPDATE: The Telegraph has their article here. Looks like Wales, Rowan Williams birthplace, is poised to break the moratorium first. As we know, the Archbishop of Wales has been chummy-chummy with the folks at 815 of late. Has anyone seen Peter Pettigrew lately?
NOTE: Our question to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (who is the former primate of Wales) is this: "It's two o'clock in the morning in London, do you know who your friends are?
LATER: The Guardian now has the story as well here.
The London Times from here:
The gay clergyman whose abortive appointment as Bishop of Reading came close to splitting the Church of England could soon become Britain’s first openly gay diocesan bishop.
Dr Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans, who two years ago celebrated a civil partnership ceremony with another priest, is to be nominated as Bishop of Bangor in North Wales.
Liberals welcomed the news, but conservatives gave warning that it would aggravate the tensions over sexuality that are threatening to rend the Anglican Communion in two and revive the rancour that followed the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson in New Hampshire in the US five years ago. Since then, the 38 provinces of the Church have agreed to observe a moratorium on such consecrations.
Several candidates are likely to be nominated for the Bangor post, but Dr John has the support of senior figures in the Church in Wales, according to informed sources. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, whose authority does not extend beyond England, would have no power to prevent such an appointment.
Read the whole thing here. Read George Conger's article here.
4 comments:
Quick clarification. Rowan Williams did not appoint Jeffrey John to Reading. The appointment was made by Richard Harries, the then Bishop of Oxford.
Should Jeffrey John be made a bishop, this would be absolutely terrible for the C of E, which should in many ways be put on suicide precautions.
I humbly submit that Jeffrey Johns at least claims that he is celibate, not actively homosexual. If his claim is true, I'm not sure there would be a valid objection to his becoming a bishop -- even from a reasserting perspective.
I'm glad to learn that Jeffery John may become a bishop of the of the Church in Wales.
The concept of homosexuality as "sinful" is based on the thinking of 2000 and more years ago, when there was no knowledge of sexual orientation. Gay people are in no way inferior to anyone else, merely different.
For more information on this topic, please refer to the article in "ThinkingAnglicans.Org" from
Sunday 27 July, by Bishop David Walker and commenters. Also consult "ThinkingAnglicans.Org." for 22 August, for the 2 reports, or "submissions" to the Church of England by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
After decades, centuries, of discrimination, reproach, denunciation and criminalization of gay folk, it is time for a change. (Do you know that there are still several countries where
being gay is punishable by death?)
Gay people began to find their voice after the Stonewall Riots of
1969, and now lay claim to every right enjoyed by other citizens,
The Sexual Orientation Regulations
in the United Kingdom and Northern
Ireland, which came into force in 2007, are designed to deal with
discrimination based on sexual orientation, Such legialation is
needed in the US, but is moving slowly in Congress.
Best wishes to Jeffery John!
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