Eccentric Anglican cleric finally evicted from vicarage
Pastor Dale Morgan
Eccentric Anglican cleric finally evicted from vicarage*
When we talk to God We call it prayer - When God talks to us we call it
Schizophrenia
By Nigel Bunyan
Last Updated: 11:41PM BST 25/06/2008
An eccentric Anglican vicar whose alleged bizarre behaviour has been
attributed to the "voice of God" he apparently routinely hears in his
head is finally on the verge of being evicted from his vicarage,
following a two-year legal battle with the Church of England.
The Rev Michael Rooke, 60, once spoke of dead babies while delivering a
sermon to a couple on their wedding day, and on another occasion
allegedly scolded a woman mourning the loss of a loved one.
The pinnacle of his "erratic and belligerent" tenure of St John the
Evangelist Church, Knotty Ash, Liverpool, came more than a decade ago
when he asked Merseyside Police to investigate a bomb he insisted had
been left amid the pews.
Army bomb squad officers were turned out but failed to find any such
device. When they asked Mr Rooke why he suspected there was a bomb, he
replied: "The Lord told me in a prayer".
During the vicar's 22 years at St John's the congregation has dwindled
to slightly higher than single figures.
On one notable occasion he gave a sermon to a solitary parishioner. Ken
Dodd, the comedian, who lives next door and was once a member of the
church choir, was among those who migrated to neighbouring parishes.
Mr Rooke moved to St John's in 1986 and within a short time allegedly
began to invite "all kinds of people" into the church, apparently on
impulse.
"He would pick them up off the street and then they would be entrusted
with counting the collection," claimed one parishioner.
Another said: "When my son got married Mr Rooke gave a most bizarre
sermon in which he started talking about dead babies. It cast a shadow
over the day".
A one-time colleague in the Church of England told the Daily Telegraph:
"The diocese very quickly realized that there was something wrong, this
man had a mental illness, but he had the freehold of the parish and it
has taken a long time to reach the position we are in now".
With Mr Rooke refusing to stand down, diocesan officials were forced to
resort to ecclesiastical law. The tribunal they empanelled has now
confirmed his eviction, while ensuring that he will be found a new home
of his choice in which to spend his retirement.
At one stage in the saga Mr Rooke was assigned a new parish whose
boundaries extended no further than the outside walls of his vicarage.
Other clerics were called in to minister to those who remained of his
flock, but on numerous Sundays their predecessor would emerge from his
home and begin to heckle them.
"He was always a bit odd," said the former colleague. "But over the last
eight or 10 years he appears to have acquired a direct line to God".
The bomb alert arose from one of his earlier "conversations" with his maker.
"He rang the police and said there was a bomb in the church. The bomb
squad turned up but after a thorough search found no evidence.
"They asked him how he knew there was a bomb and he replied: 'The Lord
told me in a prayer'".
A spokesman for the Church of England said: "We have had to go through a
legal process, but we want to make sure that Mr Rooke is looked after".