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Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 Religion: Province of 'women and queers?' A. N. Wilson recalls campy clerics from his time in the seminary and notes the lives of great service they have gone on to lead.
Not long ago, I went to a town in the North to give a reading in a bookshop. At the end, a priest came up to speak to me. It was Plum Tart. Such a pretty, clever boy 30 years ago. Ever since, he has given his learned, pious good life to the service of the Church.
As often happens when I meet one of my fellow-collegians, I momentarily forget his real name. One finds oneself going into a room and meeting an archdeacon, and becoming completely tongue-tied. One can hardly say: "Hello, Gladys." All one can remember, when seeing the portly, distinguished form of some Anglican cleric, is an evening that began with Solemn Benediction and clouds of incense, followed by a boozy dinner, followed, probably, by disco dancing in a gay club…
I have lost my religion - their religion - but I do not feel that this is a good thing. I am aware that the spiritual life of England is most alive in its national church, and that the best priests in that Church are people who, for a few silly but highly amusing years of their youth, were known as Pearl and Gladys and Edna the Cruel…
These are men who have been prepared to devote their whole lives to working in poor parishes, visiting the sick, the housebound, the lonely, the prisoners and the captives. They believe in, and live, the Gospel of Christ. They think that God became a poor man to carry our sins. Many of them, but not all, carry with them the strange burden of being homosexual.
Apparently, we are still not grown-up enough in England to believe that this is rather marvellous…
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