Charles risks Anglican discord with fond tribute to Trinity's gay dean
Pastor Dale Morgan
Charles risks Anglican discord with fond tribute to Trinity's gay dean*
By Andrew Alderson and Jonathan Wynne-Jones
(Filed: 08/10/2006)
The Prince of Wales has entered the controversy over gay clergy by
lavishing praise on the first Church of England priest to write about
his homosexuality.
Prince Charles has endorsed the ministry of Harry Williams in his
foreword to a new book of essays by the Anglican theologian, who died
earlier this year, aged 86.
The intervention from a man who, as king, will be the head of the Church
of England, will alarm conservative bishops who last week addressed
growing concern over the number of gay clergy that have "married" since
the Civil Partnerships Act was introduced last year.
In his autobiography, Some Day I'll Find You, Fr Williams shocked many
within the church by writing openly about his life as a promiscuous
homosexual.
In his book, published in 1982, he said of his days working at Cambridge
University: "I slept with several men, in each case fairly regularly.
They were all of them friends. Cynics, of course, will smile, but I have
seldom felt more like thanking God then when having sex. In bed I used
to praise Him there and then for the joy I was receiving and giving."
Fr Williams was Dean of Chapel at Trinity College when the Prince
arrived at Cambridge to study in 1967.
Now, in a fond tribute to the theologian, Prince Charles has written a
foreword to the book, Living Free, due to be published this month by
Continuum.
"Harry Williams proved to be a star; a man of intense humanity and
warmth whose humour and originality created an aura of approachability,"
he writes.
The prince does not refer directly to Fr Williams's homosexuality but he
hints heavily at it: "His courageous willingness to open up his inner
soul and being and to speak from the heart about his own experience of
the vicissitudes, complications and agonies of life struck a powerful
and immediate chord with huge numbers of undergraduates."
Prince Charles comes across as understanding of Fr Williams's lifestyle
and his controversial linking of God and homosexual activity. "His
essence may have evaporated, but his heartening and profoundly
sympathetic insight into our humanity and into the relationship between
God and Man – what he called 'our identity with Life Universal, with
God' – will live on through the power and presence of his words and
through the affectionate memories of his old undergraduates," he writes.
As well as casual affairs, Fr Williams had two long-term relationships
with men.
Deep divisions in the Church of England over gay clergy were exacerbated
in 2003 by the appointment as Bishop of Reading of Canon Jeffrey John,
who was revealed to have been in a homosexual relationship for decades.
He was forced to stand down from the post, but "married" his long-term
boyfriend this summer.
During the Jeffrey John affair, the Queen was understood to have been
upset at being asked to rubber-stamp such a controversial appointment,
but did not feel it "appropriate" to intervene.
The prince chose Fr Williams to say a prayer at his wedding in 1981 to
Lady Diana Spencer. Some friends believe that the prince named his
second son, Harry, in his honour.