HYPOCRISY An English Ecclesiastical bureaucrat and his Scottish wedding. The Church of England sometimes astounds me - --- Do the "high level" people have a sense of irony? Can they taste their own hypocrisy?



Late Breaking News

   Appointment by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.


"THE next Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments will be Stephen Knott, currently deputy chief of staff to the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was announced on Thursday.

 "Knott has been part of the Lambeth Palace staff team since 2013, filling several positions, including assistant and then deputy chief of staff from 2016. Before then, he spent more than a decade working as a researcher in the House of Commons. He grew up in Northern Ireland and studied geography at Queen’s University Belfast.

He was an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve from 2011 to 2018, and in July last year, he married Major General Alastair Bruce of Crionaich, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, in St John’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, with the Bishop of Edinburgh officiating."  (excerpt from a Church Times article)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But, and yet

In the Church of England.

The church does not allow same-sex marriage, and does not officially bless same-sex civil marriages. Gay clergy are permitted to be in relationships so long as they are celibate.

In the Scottish Episcopal Church.

In June, 2017 the Scottish Episcopal Church, which is part of the Anglican Communion, announced that it was allowing gay weddings after its synod voted to amend its canon law on marriage. The change was made when the synod agreed the law stating that marriage was between one man and one woman should be removed.

Here is the curiouser and curiouser bit.

( First to say that I am very happy for Stephen and Alastair )

However it strikes me as being odd (to say the least) that  a senior Ecclesiastical Civil Servant in the Church of England whose job description is to ferret out female or male Priests  who might be  safe nominees for the Church of England episcopate will have to take a pass on any worthy prospects who are GLBT partnered, (not married) who refuse to commit themselves to celibacy,  whatever that means. 

YET this same Civil Servant was able to have a full ecclesiastical marriage in Scotland, not in England.   I suppose that he will have to take French leave and take himself to Edinburgh Castle in search of a bit of knooky with his lawfully married Scottish spouse.

For sure he cannot be "naughty" in England lest one or both of the English Archbishops get word of it. 


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