Gay Dean

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

 

LONDON (Reuters) - A gay priest who turned down a post as a bishop after causing a storm within the Anglican Church has been offered another senior church position, Downing Street says.

 

Canon Jeffrey John, forced to relinquish his appointment as Bishop of Reading last year where he would have been the Church of England's first openly homosexual bishop, has now been offered the post of Dean of St Albans.

 

The Queen has approved the nomination, Downing Street said in a statement on Monday.

 

The appointment will attract attention after his appointment sparked a divisive debate within the Anglican Church about sexuality but is not as controversial because a dean is lower in rank than bishop.

 

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the world's 70 million Anglicans, was engulfed in last year's row which spread around the world with the case of openly gay Gene Robinson who was consecrated as bishop in New Hampshire in the United States.

 

David Virtue, the evangelical commentator who runs the influential website Virtuosity, said: "This is an outrageous appointment. It is a backdoor attempt to make homosexuality mainstream in the Church of England."

 

Quote:

"This is an outrageous appointment. It is a backdoor attempt to make homosexuality mainstream in the Church of England."

 

Probably could of found a better way of phrasing it <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[YB941 5thD EFM ~soul~]

St Albans! Quality!!