Canterbury to present Michael Ramsey Prize at the Hay Festival, Church of England bishops fail to agree on gay bishops, Vatican bans Methodist ordinations in Roman Catholic cathedral
Michael Ramsey Prize at the Hay Festival
Today, The Archbishop of Canterbury will present The Michael Ramsey Prize for 2011 which will be awarded to the author of a theological work that is judged to contribute most towards advancing theology and making a lasting contribution to the faith and life of the Church.
Church of England fails to agree on gay bishops
The Church of England failed to reach a decision on whether to ordain openly gay men as bishops after meeting in York this week. According to a memo leaked to The Guardian newspaper, church lawyers advised the prelates that while gay people should not be overlooked for preferment, those in civil partnerships, even if they are celibate, should not be appointed as bishops because of the divisions they would cause.
In addition, a leaked memo written by the then Dean of Southwark Colin Slee before his death last year and sent to The Guardian alleges that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York opposed the first choices of archbishop of Southwark: Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans, who is gay and in a celibate civil partnership, and Nicholas Holtam, then rector of St Martin-in-the-Fields, central London, who is married to a divorcee. Eventually Bishop Christopher Chessun was chosen.
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Vatican bans Methodist ordinations in Catholic cathedral
The Vatican has intervened to overturn an offer from the Archbishop of Liverpool for Methodists to use his cathedral for the ordination of new ministers. After initially agreeing to the use of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Archbishop Patrick Kelly, has withdrawn his offer just weeks before the ordinations were to take place. Methodist ordination services are often held in churches of other denominations as a gesture of ecumenism. Archbishop Kelly said he was “not entirely surprised” to learn of the Vatican’s opposition to the idea.