A few hours to kill at home before I go down to St. George’s to make sure the heating has come on at its appointed time for Midnight Mass. Some thoughts waft into my mind from a long distant RE class, probably from the latter years of my (fairly unhappy) Primary School education, I would think from Mr. McGinnity in P6 or P7. I would have been about ( Read more... )

To our friends in the South: it would be easy for you to negotiate a lot of what you want down there while ensuring we are left in the Dark Ages up here, but agreeing to an effective partition of the Church of Ireland on sexuality is one of the dangers of Resolution 8A. It hands huge amounts of power to Bishops to interpret it as they see fit. It ( Read more... )

By chance, I met one of the Church of Ireland’s leading Conservative Evangelical clergy yesterday. I would have expected it to be a tense encounter, but it wasn’t. He behaved as I would expect a Christian genuinely speaking in loving disagreement would and I hope I gave the same impression to him. I had been extremely critical - and I mean ( Read more... )

Sir,

I am an openly gay member of the Church of Ireland and one of the unwelcome guests who turned up at the Slieve Russell Hotel for the Church of Ireland’s gay conference uninvited because I had spent months trying to ensure, by working carefully and responsibly in the background, that there was meaningful gay participation in the conference, and ( Read more... )

There are many people who feel I should not have been at the Church of Ireland’s conference on homosexuality this weekend. I wish I could agree with them. There are many, many other ways I would rather have spent this weekend than being the unwelcome guest at someone else’s party. It was not a nice experience. I hope never to have to repeat it. But ( Read more... )

A Church of England Bishop has written a recommendation for a book supporting the legalisation of marital rape and accusing the Queen of breaking her Coronation Oath.

The Rt Rev’d Wallace Benn is the Suffragan Bishop of Lewes on the south coast of England. Dublin-born Benn is also an influential figure within Church of Ireland Evangelical circles, ( Read more... )

Crossposted at Slugger O'Toole.

Controversial Belfast psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Miller, recently sanctioned by the General Medical Council, is a member of the Board of Reference of Core Issues, the controversial Lisburn-based counselling and advocacy organisation which teaches that homosexual practise is sinful and has been associated with ( Read more... )

Letter published in the Church of Ireland Gazette, 13th January 2012

What first attracted me to the Church of Ireland was its tolerance and inclusiveness, especially its acceptance of me as a full member of the Parish family without demanding I convert formally. Eventually I did formally join the Church, and one important reason for this was that I ( Read more... )

It would be great if the Cathedral was doing an enormous family service at 11.30 every Sunday, a traditional Choral Mattins at 10 for the peepil whie like going to the Cethedrel, while round the corner St. George's was doing a High Church but not over the top Choral Mass at 11 for the arty literary set, the intellectuals, the gays and singletons ( Read more... )

Anglican Martyr, David Kato, was murdered on 26 January 2011, for his outspoken gay activism and refusal to live his vocation as a liberator in secret. Let us honour his memory and give thanks for his life by keeping his death as his a saints day in the Calendars of Saints of the Anglican Churches. Let us remember David Kato on his feast day in ( Read more... )