The Wardman Wire

I haven’t commented on this one so far, but it’s been all over everywhere.

The Rev Peter Mullen, of St Michael’s Cornhill has published some highly offensive comments on his blog (this is now deleted from his site, but Ruth Gledhill quoted him in a Times article):

Mr Mullen, 66, wrote on his blog: ‘It is time that religious believers began to recommend… discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets.Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.’

And again:

In another post he wrote an ode to the blessing of two gay priests, celebrated by the Rev Martin Dudley at St Bartholomew the Great, also in the City. Bishop Chartres has launched an investigation into that service after traditionalists complained that it breached church guidelines that the church should not bless civil partnerships.

Tim Ireland has the full verse:

Gay wedding at St Bartholomew’s EC1

The Bishop of London is in a high huff
Because Dr Dudley has married a puff;
And not just one puff – he’s married another:
Two priests, two puffs and either to other.
“It isn’t a wedding, for that’s not allowed;
They’ve just come together and promised and vowed
To shack up and snug up, to have and to hold:
Ooh aren’t we radical! Ooh aren’t we bold!”
Now here’s a most queer and most wonderful thing:
He’s given his hand, he’s offered his ring;
And each to the other forever will bend,
After their troll in the coach up West End.
Not a flash wedding, no pics in Hello!
Just a honeymoon cottage, convenient so.
Of such Dr Dudley a goldmine has found,
From shaven-head puftas the nuptial pink pound.
The new Church of England embraces diversity,
A fresh modulation on ancient perversity:
“I’m C of E and PC so don’t think it odd of me
To offer a licence and blessing for sodomy.”

Originally published by Rev Dr Peter Mullen on June 18, 2008 at:
http://petermullen.typepad.com/peter_mullen/2008/06/gay-wedding-at.html

And this on her Articles of Faith Blog:

In a recent sermon at St Michael’s, on Trinity VIII, he preached on women bishops. This is what he said:

‘There is a female ascendancy in the church and it has a certain character. It is broadly feminist, left-wing in politics and obsessed with environmental issues. Let me give a couple of examples. On Ascension Day last year a sermon was preached in the City of London – and broadcast on the BBC – by a woman priest very widely tipped to be one of the first of the new bishops. She said the original Apostles of Jesus thought the world was about to end. They were wrong, she said. But we today know the world is coming to an end – because of global warming.

‘I was speaking with another likely candidate on Lord Mayor’s Day in Guildhall. She was standing alone so I went up to make conversation. I asked her how she was finding life in the City. She complained, Oh it’s all so white, upper class and male! I felt like answering, This is the City on one of its days of traditional high ceremonial.

‘What did you expect – the lumpen proletariat, black section, with bongo drums?

‘Ms Vivienne Faull, Provost of Leicester is one of the front-runners to be made bishop. She seems to want women priests to be sex objects. She complains: Dangly earrings, nail varnish and heels are seen as inappropriate – even the slightly erotic is not normally thought acceptable, Ms Faull declares, What I love is watching the new generation who feel freer to express themselves. I hope the rules get loosened a bit.

‘I have attended services where the worship was devised by this female ascendancy. We were asked to place little nightlights in the sanctuary, then prance around them as if we were part of the anglo-catholic daisy chain. Sentimental choruses instead of robust hymns.

Should he be allowed to write this stuff? Of course he should, since free expression needs to be as basic as breathing. The best way to deal with it is – as ever – argument and ridicule.

The (far too mild) reaction from The Bishop of London:

The Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, described the comments as “highly offensive.”

Wit

You can read more of Peter Mullen at his sometime Guest Blog at the Social Affairs Unit. He certainly has a wit. Here he is laughing at A.N.Wilson in 2006, and all those who piled into Rowan Williams over his lecture on Sharia Law (wrongly, in my view) earlier in the year would probably agree with the “Circumlocution Officer” description of the Archbishop.

A.N.Wilson is fond of name-calling, but he has a long way to go before he can match Lord Habgood who once described the traditionalist Archdeacon George Austin as,

“…like the Fat Boy in Pickwick Papers who makes your flesh creep”.

In similar vein, I must say the Archbishop of Canterbury always reminds me of the Circumlocution Officer.

Anyhow, Wilson is welcome to his own very public agnostical agonising – an agony which, I suspect, becomes rather less agonising but certainly ever more public as the years go by.

Wrapping Up

I expect Rev Mullen to be “resigned” from the Stock Exchange when they have stabilised after the Credit Crunch, but I’m not necessarily expecting him to exit his position – purely as a matter of practicality. He has Freehold Tenure and it could cost half a million, and take longer than the three years he has to retirement to force him out (if he decides to fight it). It is better that he stays put and the money is spent on something useful such as funding a night shelter.

It may be different if the Bishop of London can implement a summary dismissal of some sort, however.

I think Peter Mullen is finished as a figure more serious than Mr Punch. Rightly.