Vicars will end up being sued and the difference between marriage and gay partnerships will be ‘fudged’ after last night’s vote in the House of Lords, the Bishop of Winchester warned. Speaking to me by telephone a few minutes ago, the Right Rev Michael Scott Joynt, who was unable to be in the House for the vote because of unbreakable prior commitments, said he believed the next step would be vicars being sued for discrimation if they obeyed Church of England law and refused to do gay weddings.

‘Having thought about it a great deal since the committee stage, I regret enormously the vote last night….I think it will make for a great many difficulties. There are two I am particularly concerned about.’

He continued: ‘Notwithstanding the bland words of a number of individuals, some of whom surprise me, I believe it does further fudge the line between civil partnerships and marriage. That is shown by some newspapers which simply speak of gay marriages in church. The second thing is, I believe that it will open, not the Church of England but individual clergy, to charges of discrimination if they solemnise marriages as they all do but refuse to host civil partnership signings in their churches. Unless the Government does something explicit about this, I believe that is the next step.’

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Gay men and women will finally be allowed to marry in churches after the House of Lords dramatically voted in favour of lifting the ban on religious premises holding same-sex partnerships.

The amendment to the Equality Bill, which was tabled as a free vote by gay Muslim peer Waheed Alli, received overwhelming backing in the Lords, including from a number of prominent Anglican bishops.

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Traditionalist bishops and peers fear that vicars could be taken to court and accused of discrimination if they turn down requests to hold civil partnerships on religious premises.

Their concerns have been raised following a landmark vote by peers that will allow the ceremonies for same-sex couples to be held in places of worship for the first time.

It is also feared that the changes would blur the line further between marriage – which churches say must be between a man and a woman – and civil partnerships.

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To summarise, the amendment leaves a number of questions unanswered and the Government has recognised these. They have also stated very clearly the fact that this is in their view, not in any sense a human rights or justice issue. The Bill still has to have a third reading in both houses and the amendment may very well fail at that point, or die with the Bill in its entirety if legislation is dumped in advance of the General Election.

One thing is clear though ”“ this is legalised gay marriage in church by the back door and those of us who are Biblically conservative need to be very aware of what is going on. The Bill in its current form is too ambiguous and would arguably permit Church of England clergy to let Civil Partnerships be registered in churches without the permission of their Bishops.

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In conclusion, were the state to be preventing a religious body from exercising its freedom of religion it would indeed be quite wrong for the established church to support such restrictions simply on the grounds that it did not itself wish to exercise such a freedom. That is not, however, the situation created by the Civil Partnership Act. The current legislation does not place any such limit on religious freedom. Quakers, Unitarians, liberal Jews, any other religious group, is at liberty to celebrate the formation of civil partnerships and other patterns of same-sex union within their own communities in whatever way they determine according to the laws of their religious body. The state does not claim any right to interfere in or to prevent such religious ceremonies.

No religious body has a right for its clergy to be recognised as acting as a registrar on behalf of the state or for its premises to be used for such registration – registration of births, for example, is not franchised out in order that it can be completed on religious premises by a religious minister at a service of infant baptism or thanksgiving for the birth of a child rather than by a civil registrar! Saying that such registration cannot take place in a religious ceremony is therefore not a denial of anyone’s rights.As noted above, in many European countries, there is universal civil registration of marriage and this is not held to be an infringement of religious freedom. Furthermore, in contrast to marriage law prior to 1836, it is not as if those with religious commitments who wish to enter a civil partnership are required to participate in a ceremony to which (as agnostics, atheists or non-Anglicans) they may have conscientious objections – they simply have to sign a document in the presence of a registrar and witnesses.

As some have begun to argue, it may well be time for a more wholesale review of the law in relation to marriage, including now its relationship to civil partnerships. The proposed amendment by Lord Alli is, however, not the way to proceed. The rushed, piece-meal and agenda-driven nature of his changes to the Civil Partnership Act create many more problems and confusions than they resolve and show a lack of awareness of the history and contemporary complexity of the law in relation to civil marriage, religious marriage and civil partnerships. Sadly, given the weaknesses in the arguments advanced, and the known views of many of the signatories of the letter to The Times, it is perhaps not unduly cynical to see the sudden strong lobbying of support for Lord Alli’s amendment as something of a Trojan horse. Under the flawed but powerful rhetoric of “religious freedom” and “non-discrimination”, the amendment will have two consequences. Removing the restriction of registering civil partnerships to a civil ceremony will further undermine the distinction between civil partnerships and marriage. It will also make life increasingly difficult for those people and communities of faith who in conscience object to the establishment of ‘gay marriage’and who are given no protection under the proposed amendments from charges of being discriminatory if they only offer marriages but not civil partnerships.

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Since the debacle of Civil Partnerships I must confess to some doubts about the place of Bishops in the House of Lords.

You will recall that eight bishops (Chelmsford, Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, St Albans, St Eds & Ips and Truro) voted in favour of the Bill while only two bishops voted against (Chester and Southwell). In recent times they have slightly redeemed themselves with a spirited defence of religious freedom by defeating the government on the Equality Bill, but such was the seriousness of the Civil Partnerships legislation that it is not easy to forget.

Three of those bishops who voted in favour came back again like bad pennies with a letter to The Times protesting this time that the Civil Partnership Act had not gone far enough in creating a new category of civil marriage. They now want civil partnerships to have the character of religious marriage, according to the various letter writers. They complain that the original Act had prohibited civil partnerships from being registered in religious premises. Now they want this overturned for uber-liber- al Jewish and Christian bodies, effectively making civil partnerships undistinguishable from marriage.

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There are many Catholic-minded Anglicans like me who have wondered, more than once whether we should become Roman Catholics. Rome is clearly the senior church of the Western tradition and I find so much to admire about it.

I rejoice in its internationalism, its capacity to produce saints in even the most unpropitious times and its ability to inspire poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, novelists such as Evelyn Waugh, and a number of distinguished modern composers.

I am deeply moved by the ministry of priests working in the shantytowns of Latin America and elsewhere. Then, of course, for those with an orderly mind, there is the ability of the Vatican to present a clear message for the outside world.

So why remain an Anglican? And why would it not be good for the country to become Roman Catholic again? For me the answer is summed up in a remark that a well-known Anglo-Catholic priest made to the mother superior of an Anglican religious order shortly before he died: “Mother, you know, the Church of England is now the only part of the Catholic Church which is open to the future.”

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Although it may look otherwise the arguments around assisted suicide are about two different trajectories for our society and that is why passion is running high. I cannot remember an issue that has so united the bishops of the Church of England ”“ not a group famed for their unanimity! I hope this may paradoxically be a sign that this is not all about “religion” but the nature of our humanity and what sort of society we want to be a part of. A position paper from the Church of England said this: “Suffering may be met with compassion, commitment to high quality services and effective medication; meeting it by assisted suicide or through voluntary euthanasia, however well intentioned, is merely removing it in the crudest way possible.”

I very much hope that Keir Starmer’s guidelines will be recognised as providing the nuance and discretion needed for our social and moral wellbeing and steer us away from the road to legalising assisted suicide. If we want to build a society which majors on compassion and care, which supports those who are dying or fearful of growing infirm and a burden, there are far better roads for us to travel.

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No formal response is expected from the UK to the Pope’s offer of a Personal Ordinariate to Anglican groups until after the General Synod meet­ing in July, it emerged this week.

On Monday, dozens of churches, both Church of England and Roman Catholic, opened their doors for a day of prayer about the Pope’s offer. The invitation was extended last autumn to groups of Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church while pre­serving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony (News, 23 October 2009).

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Revd Andrew Burnham, had asked members of Forward in Faith, and others, to make Monday, the feast of the Chair of St Peter, “an opportun­ity to reflect, pray, and discern the way forward for each of us, our priests and our parishes”. But on his website he said that the day would not be “a day of decision”.

After the General Synod post­poned until its July sessions the revision stage of the legislation for women bishops, it is thought that most traditionalists will wait until after that debate before react­ing to the Pope’s offer. This means that they will participate actively in elections for the new Synod, which take place during the summer.

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A group of prominent Church of England clergy yesterday called for the right to solemnise civil partnerships in church.

They backed a change to Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill that would allow religious buildings to host them. At present they must be registered in secular surroundings, like civil weddings.

The campaign deepens the difficulties of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who is to trying to avoid a worldwide Anglican rift over gay rights in the Church.

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The Church of England has so far resisted change, arguing that if some religious groups are allowed to hold civil partnerships then the pressure on the C of E to follow suit will become intolerable. It is a feeble argument. No one is arguing that any church should be forced to conduct a civil partnership. But willing churches should not be precluded from doing so.

Benjamin Disraeli believed the Church of England to be “a part of our liberties, a part of our national character”. If it has any hope of continuing in that role, the Church ”” and the Government ”” must recognise that our liberties today should include the right of homosexuals to register the most important promise of their lives in a church.

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In the same debate, the bishops were crucial in defeating government proposals to limit the space within which religious bodies are exempt from anti-discrimination law. They see that as a fundamental matter of conscience. But it is inconsistent to affirm the spiritual independence of the Church of England and simultaneously to deny the spiritual independence of the three small communities who seek this change for themselves (and not for anybody else).

The bishops’ “slippery slope” argument is invalid. Straight couples have the choice between civil marriage and religious marriage. Gay couples are denied a similar choice. To deny people of faith the opportunity of registering the most important promise of their lives in their willing church or synagogue, according to its liturgy, is plainly discriminatory. In the US it would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise . . . of religion.

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It is natural for a person to feel helpless and hopeless when a terminal or incurable condition is first diagnosed but, given the right support by family, friends and the medical community, it is quite possible lto come through this phase and to enjoy some quality of life and even its enrichment. As Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the Hospice movement, has said, ” Our last days are not necessarily lost days “. Not only can they be used to recapture the past and to strengthen relationships but also for contemplation and preparation. Again and again, people have told me how much they have learned about themselves and others at this time in their lives.

It is simply a mistake to emphasise the autonomy of the individual, especially at this point. It is relatedness that matters. Rather than seeing themselves as unwanted and alone, people, at this stage of life, should feel themselves drawn into a circle of love and care where they will be made as comfortable as possible and valued for who they are. It is not necessary always to be independent. Human beings depend upon one another at every stage of life and this one is no different. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ”, says St.Paul and this is exactly what the Hospice movement has shown us can be done in the care of the terminally and incurably ill. Thank God for all the wonderful people involved in this work.

Another valuable lesson which this movement has taught us is that it is nearly always possible to manage pain and to make sure that patients do not suffer unnecessarily. Palliative medicine is now highly developed and, whether in hospices or in pain clinics in hospitals, it tries to make sure that science is made to serve the care of people who are seriously ill and relieve them of as much pain as possible. Such relief may, in fact, lengthen the life-span but even if it has the effect of hastening death, this is quite different from an intervention that intends the death of the patient.

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On Monday, Anglo-Catholics across England will be holding a day of prayer to help their bishops, clergy and laity decide how to respond to the Pope’s provision of a self-governing Ordinariate for former Anglicans.

Many members of our Church will be praying with them; in Oxford, Anglicans are joining the members of the Oratory for a Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

There is a lot to pray about, and a lot to pray for. Anglo-Catholics interested in the Holy Father’s offer will be praying for gifts of discernment not only for themselves but for their fellow Anglican Catholics and Catholic Anglicans. (The two terms are not quite interchangeable, which gives you some idea of the complexity of the situation.)

But I’m guessing that top of the list of requests to the Almighty will be for the Catholic Church, in consultation with the Anglo-Catholic leaders, to get it right.

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The former assistant Bishop of Newcastle, Paul Richardson, has been received into full communion with the Holy See, I am pleased to reveal. Richardson ”“ also a former Anglican bishop in Papua New Guinea and diocesan bishop of Wangaratta in Australia ”“ was received into the Church at the chaplaincy at Durham University last month.

He tells me that his conversion is not the product of recent controversies. “I would have become a Catholic even if the Church of England wasn’t ordaining women bishops,” he says. “In a sense I feel it’s what I’ve always been, so this is like coming home.”

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The Bishop of Swindon has warned that the controversial debate on assisted suicide is in danger of being hijacked by celebrities.

The Right Reverend Dr Lee Rayfield, who opposes calls to relax the ban on euthanasia, spoke out after a TV presenter made an on-air confession that he killed his lover, who was dying from Aids.

The claim, made by Ray Gosling on the BBC’s Inside Out programme on Monday, is being investigated by Nottinghamshire Police.

It follows a separate call by author Sir Terry Pratchett, who lives in Wiltshire and is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, for the setting up of euthanasia tribunals to give sufferers from incurable diseases the right to medical help to end their lives.

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Somebody has leaked to the Guardian a sensitive email from the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, “flying” Bishop of Ebbsfleet, to Bishop Peter Elliott of Melbourne, the Catholic auxiliary bishop in charge of implementing Anglicanorum coetibus in Australia.

In it, Bishop Burnham ”“ an outstanding and inspiring Anglo-Catholic leader ”“ confirms what we’ve all long suspected: that there are forces in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales who hate the Pope’s plan and want Anglicans to stay Anglican. Or, as he puts it, “who think that Anglicans are best off doing what they are presently doing”.

Bishop Burnham will be embarrassed by this leak, which reveals that in order to make sure that the Ordinariate project is not “smothered” he has been talking privately to Mgr Patrick Burke at the CDF (another great priest, by the way). He’s also a bit disobliging about Archbishop Hepworth of the Traditional Anglican Communion.

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A new web-based service from the Church of England, launched today to mark the beginning of Lent, lets people across the country confidentially share their hopes and concerns anonymously in the form of a prayer ”“ and also have those thoughts offered to God by a bishop.

Prayers received via www.SayOneForMe.org over the next 40 days will be displayed on the site and shared with a number of Church of England bishops, who have agreed to remember the submissions in their own prayers over the season. The website invites visitors to type in their prayers ”“ and then click ”˜Amen’ to post them.

The Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Dudley, says: “Priests are well used to having people shout at us ”˜say one for me’. Whatever the initial intention of that yell in the street, underlying it is the fact that people feel a need to pray ”“ especially during difficult times. Our visits today and the new website are both simple ways for us to harness that desire and engage with people where they are. Of course, nobody needs a dog collar to be heard by God, but for many people, knowing that someone else is praying for us gives us the confidence to make our own prayers, and prayer is often the gateway to hope. The website allows people to share their prayers anonymously via their own home computer or even on the move through a mobile device.”

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The Rt Revd Dr Tom Butler, Anglican Bishop of Southwark since 1998, will retire at the beginning of March when he reaches his 70th birthday.

This week he presided and preached at the Sunday morning Choral Eucharist at Southwark Cathedral for the last time.

The Eucharist was attended by the Mayor of Southwark Cllr Jeff Hook and North Southwark and Bermondsey MP Simon Hughes as well as representatives from Southwark’s twin cathedrals in Bergen, Norway and Rouen, France.

“As well as being the mother church of the diocese, this holy place is home ”“ week in, week out ”“ to its own congregation of faithful people and it is with you that I wanted to spend my last Sunday here,” said the Bishop as he began his sermon. “And it is very appropriate that today is St Valentine’s Day ”“ for I love this place.”

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The 40-day period of penitence before Easter typically sees observant Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians give up meat, alcohol or chocolates.

But this year’s initiative aims to convince those observing Lent to try a day without an iPod or mobile phone in a bid to reduce the use of electricity ”” and thus trim the amount of carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere.

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This week’s meeting of General Synod is being dominated by a debate that does not actually appear on the agenda. A year ago synod passed a motion calling for the legislation that will make it possible for women to be bishops in the Church of England. Included in that motion was a request to the drafting committee to bring its proposals to the synod meeting this February. For a ­variety of reasons, it has failed to do so.

Instead, the Bishop of Manchester, chair of the steering committee, on Monday gave synod a summary of what it had been doing for the past year. With over 300 written submissions to consider, and with the option of synod members to make oral submissions as well, it clearly had its work cut out. No one can accuse it of slacking.

But what should have been a more straightforward process, coming at the end of a 35-year debate, has turned into a tortuous marathon, with requests for every conceivable type of provision for the minority of people in the church who still do not accept that women can ”“ or should ”“ exercise episcopal ministry.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury will fight threats of disintegration in the Church of England with what is expected to be a forceful intervention at the General Synod today.

Dr Rowan Williams is determined to challenge the increasingly bitter infighting sparked by disagreements over women bishops in England and gay ordinations in the US.

In one of the most important presidential addresses of his seven-year archiepiscopacy, described by one insider as a “brilliant piece of work”, the Archbishop is expected to salvage hope from the despair felt by many Anglicans over pressure brought by the liberal, evangelical and Catholic wings of the established Church.

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Ordaining women as bishops would be “a mistake”, a group of 50 clergy has warned in a letter to the Church of England General Synod.

The clergy, linked to the evangelical group Reform, say adequate safeguards for objectors to the plan are needed.

If not, the Church could see a drastic cut in the number of men training for the priesthood and a multi-million pound drop in funding, they warn.

The General Synod began its week-long meeting on Monday.

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The Church of England is to go ahead with the plan to create women bishops without giving in to demands from traditionalists for a separate structure of bishops and archbishops untainted by the hands of a woman.

Traditionalists oppose women bishops because they argue that Jesus had no women disciples and that the apostolic succession of bishops, passed down by the laying of hands at ordination, should therefore be male.

Traditionalists warned last night that the decision, to be announced at the General Synod today, will trigger an exodus from the Church of England of many thousands of priests and lay people.

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One of our strengths as a nation is that we are a land of immigrants. Over the centuries, people have come to this country, fleeing conflict or seeking new opportunities, from other parts of the British Isles, from mainland Europe, or from further afield, to enrich and develop our common life.

Many of us will have Scottish or Welsh blood in our veins. Others trace our ancestry to the West Indies or Pakistan, though we ourselves are English. In Leeds, we have one of the larger Jewish populations in the country, and our city has benefited immensely from their contribution.

Yet, frequently in recent years, there have been expressions of fear over the role of immigrants to our country, and they have surfaced
again with the recent declaration of the cross-party Group on Balanced Migration. This calls for political parties to declare, in the run-up to the General Election, how they will restrict immigration. One of the signatories has described Britain as “our claustrophobic island”.

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[Today]…Christians keep the feast of Candlemas, 40 days after Christmas. For some it will be kept this Sunday. Candlemas, with its candle procession and theme of light, commemorates the story in St Luke’s Gospel of the child Jesus being brought to the Temple in Jerusalem to be presented to the Lord. As Mary and Joseph carry the child into the Temple, two old and devout people, Simeon and Anna, meet them. Simeon, Luke tells us, has looked for “the consolation of Israel”. The word translated consolation is the word that St John uses for the Holy Spirit ”” “the Paraclete”, a word that means advocate, comforter, even goader. Simeon is longing for transformation and deliverance, for God’s salvation to come to his people. He longs for liberation in a land that is occupied territory, he longs for transformation and renewal, which is the “paracleting”, the Holy Spiriting of his people.

Simeon, with his rheumy eyes, encounters a child carried in by two poor parents. Suddenly he sees in this child the salvation he desires. He bursts out into the great cry of thanksgiving that we know as the Nunc Dimittis. “Lord, now you can let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation!” This song of Simeon, rightly used at funerals, is often heard as a lament, a gentle commendation, but in the story of the Presentation in the Temple, as Luke tells it, is rather a great cry of triumph. In the same way at the end of the Creed Christians “look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come”. This is no casual glancing forward, but the burning hope that waits with longing expectation for the transfiguring of our earthly bodies and the fulfilment of eternal life.

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Lord Lester of Herne Hill, countering this, said: “Removing proportionality . . . would inevitably lead to complex and costly litigation . . . [which] would require the principle of proportionality to be applied as part of the law of the land, whatever the movers of these amendments and the seven Bishops now present may say. It is the law under European law and it is the law of the land. Proportionality is required whether they like it or not.”

The Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter also spoke in the debate. Dr Sentamu said: “Successive legislation over the past 35 years has always recognised the principle that religious organisations need the freedom to impose requirements in relation to belief and conduct that go beyond what a secular employer should be able to require.

“Noble Lords may believe that Roman Catholics should allow priests to be married; they may think that the Church of England should hurry up and allow women to become bishops; they may feel that many churches and other religious organisations are wrong on matters of sexual ethics. But if religious freedom means anything, it must mean that those are matters for the churches and other religious organisations to determine in accordance with their own convictions. They are not matters for the law to impose.”

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The future of religious broadcasting, a topic that will be discussed at synod in a few weeks time, is something that affects more than just the BBC. Attending “religion in the media” dos it becomes plain that pretty much all religious voices feel poorly represented by what they call the media. I want to take that perception with a huge pinch of salt, because in an open society it isn’t the function of professional journos to represent any religious leader’s point of view accurately so they won’t have to, but to report on what’s going on clearly and accurately. In a media environment with no middle men, religious leaders should learn to speak up clearly for themselves, and take the consequences. They shouldn’t expect the BBC to do this for them, because it can’t and shouldn’t. Yet, the fact that a whole range of religious leaders representing every major tradition in the UK feel chronically misunderstood must mean something. No smoke without fire.

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