The publication of the ‘lessons-learnt’ report commissioned by Emmanuel Church Wimbledon on the activities of their former vicar, Jonathan Fletcher, has stirred a lot of memories for me. And because they go round and round in my head, I have decided to write them down. This may be quite long, as I am going to …
Category: Church of England
Deadly Pressure
It was reading the reports of the Oxford Diocesan enquiry into the events in the parishes of Stowe and Maids Moreton that made me pick up my digital pen this morning. You can read the report at https://www.oxford.anglican.org/safeguarding/learning-reviews/events-in-stowe-maids-moreton/. It tells of the activities of a very dangerous young man, Ben Field, who insinuated himself into …
Funerals in a time of plague
I have been taking people’s funerals since I was twenty-five. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of funerals of all kinds, in all kinds of places, surrounded by a huge variety of rituals and customs that made the grieving manageable for the mourners. But I have never seen a time like this. Everything in us …
Sexuality and Intimacy: are we thinking straight?
Yesterday I went to a lecture-workshop led by Professor Traugott Roser , Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Munster. It was entitled, "Sexuality and Intimacy in a time of severe illness and death". The lecture at the beginning told us about research conducted with a cohort of terminally ill patients and their spouses …
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Making a Case for Pastoral Guidance
Why the House of Bishops' new guidance needs a lot more work if it is going to be listened to.
On Not Sharing the Peace
When I was a boy, there was no such thing as sharing the peace. The 1662 Prayer Book Communion service is a liturgy that resolutely maintains the sense of the individual amidst the corporate. Charles Willams's poem, At the "Ye that do truly" expresses the sense of separation of one Christian from another in this …
From The Quire 