The Principal of Pusey House, Oxford, the Revd Jonathan Baker, is to resign as a Freemason after being encouraged by the Archbishop of Canterbury to reconsider his membership before his consecration as the next Bishop of Ebbsfleet.<\/p>\n
It was announced earlier this month…that Mr Baker would be one of the two new Provincial Episcopal Visitors, to replace Mgr Andrew Burnham, a leader of the RC Ordinariate, who seceded in January.<\/p>\n
Mr Baker, who recently served as an Assistant Grand Chaplain to the Freemasons, posted a statement on the Ebbsfleet website last Friday, the day when he was contacted by a Sunday newspaper. He said that he had joined as a lay undergraduate in Oxford, and had found it to be \u201can organisation admirably committed to community life and involvement with a record of charitable giving second to none, especially among, for example, unfashionable areas of medical research\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n