ABC on civil partnerships

Simon Mayo of the BBC's Radio 5 Live has done an interview with Rowan Williams that is really worth finding the time to listen to. I've posted a couple of the most interesting extracts below. You can also read the full transcript here, on Graham Kings' Fulcrum site. But it is only by hearing or reading the full interview that you'll get the full impact of an aspect of Dr Williams' that we haven't seen much of to date. That is, his sense of humour. Towards the end, Mayo asks him, 'Are you enjoying the job?' He replies, 'Depends which day of the week you ask me really. I get on with it.' This is a veiled hint at what several independent sources have told me privately - that in fact, he is finding it pretty awful, even hellish. So I am sorry to add to his woes here, but I couldn't help but find it noteworthy that earlier in the same interview, he actually offered a 'limited welcome' to the Government's the new Civil Partnership Act, 'in so far as it rectifies injustices or inequities that there may have been before.'

This welcome from Dr Williams seems brave, and even surprising, because the Church of England’s acknowledgement that clergy should be allowed to enter into civil partnerships has earned it condemnation from conservative evangelicals, particularly in the Global South churches of Africa and Asia.

In an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, headed a list of conservative bishops who accused Church of England leaders of giving "the appearance of evil with regard to its partnered clergy". This was the rather harsh and condemnatory letter ostensibly signed by at least 14 Global South archbishops but which a number of them, including Greg Venables, subsequently distanced themselves from. Mysteriously, today I could no longer find the letter on the front page of Global South website, although it is still on the site - you can read it via this link. I've written about it on two previous blogs, here and here.

In his interview with Mayo, however, Dr Williams showed that maybe his liberal principles are not as easily downtrodden as some have speculated.

He said civil partnerships were welcome because they delivered certain rights "in the public sphere".

He said: "It’s a legal arrangement between two people. It’s about certain commitments that allow certain legal dispositions and economic dispositions to be made. It doesn’t presuppose that there’s a sexual relationship, it doesn’t presuppose that there’s anything, that there’s anything exactly what we would call as Christians, a marriage. But it’s very hard to keep that, those two things apart in the public eye."

The latest victim of the war between West and Global South is of course Acton vicar Nick Henderson, rejected for the post of Bishop of Malawi because of his former chairmanship of the Modern Churchpeople's Union. The Church Times has a helpful report on this here. Thinking Anglicans has numerous links to developments on this story here.

Meanwhile, clergy up to the level of residentiary canon are embracing the new legislation and signing up to register their partnerships from 21 December onwards. No bishop has yet had the courage to do it, or admit that he's doing it, but it can surely only be a matter of time.

A canon at Salisbury cathedral is the most senior Church of England clergyman to date to declare his intention to register his same-sex partnership. And I understand least one other cathedral canon in the Church is also intending to register a partnership.

Canon Jeremy Davies, who has been Precentor at Salisbury for 20 years, will mark his 60th birthday in January with a party for 120 people at which he will be joined in partnership with opera singer Simon McEnery.

The Bishop of Salisbury, the Right Rev David Stancliffe, and his wife Sarah are expected to drop in briefly to join in the celebrations, in a private house just outside Salisbury.

The Dean of Salisbury, the Very Rev June Osborne, who is the country’s most senior woman cleric, is also expected to attend.

Canon Davies and Mr McEnery, a graduate in singing and jazz of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, met 18 years ago at a party in Canon Davies’ house in the cathedral close. Mr McEnery moved in there shortly afterwards.

They have invited 120 people to their reception, at which the many musician friends of the couple will be doing individual performances on the stage. The registration will take place in mid-afternoon.

Initial plans for a religious service to mark the occasion were dropped out of respect for church sensitivities. Bishops of the Church of England have been anxious to emphasise that civil partnerships are not marriages and have ruled out official blessings.

Mr McEnery, 41, said: "We do not regard this as a wedding. We see it as a legal thing. We see it as the signing of a legal form to declare our civil partnership in order to make the other next of kin and give us legal and financial rights. There are significant reasons for doing this in terms of security."

He continued: "We are just very happy and pleased that we are among the first people to be doing this. It feels good that we are able to make some kind of formal declaration in this country."

Clergy who register civil partnerships have to be prepared to give their bishop assurances that their relationship is celibate, otherwise they will be subject to the Church’s disciplinary procedures.

Dean Osborne said: "From the cathedral’s point of view we recognise that what Canon Davies is doing is entirely legal. We have been assured that his decision to register his partnership is within the Church’s guidelines.

"The cathedral is wanting to express its commitment, both to the disciplines of the Church but also to the stability and wholesomeness of relationships.

"There are two viewpoints here. There will be those in the Church of England who think that this act is incompatible with a minister’s loyalty to the traditional teaching of the Church.

"There will be others who will be glad to see a good relationship become more public and therefore perhaps more honest."

Meanwhile, we should all be praying for Richard Thomas, one of the most helpful diocesan communications officers there has been in the Church of England in recent times.