Church tribunal clears clergyman who called trans archdeacon ‘a bloke’

Mar 30, 2024 by Jill

by Jonathan Ames, The Times:

Brett Murphy also described Rachel Mann as a ‘fella’ but a CofE review ruled the words were ‘not in themselves offensive’

A clergyman who called the Church of England’s first trans woman archdeacon a “bloke” should not be punished, a disciplinary tribunal has ruled.

Brett Murphy was an Anglican priest when he posted comments to his 14,000 YouTube subscribers in which he commented on the appointment of Rachel Mann as the archdeacon of Bolton and Salford last year.

Murphy said that Mann was “in fact, biologically, a bloke, who identifies and lives as a woman”. He also described Mann as a “fella”.

He went on to speculate whether the appointment indicated that the Anglican hierarchy was “positioning” Mann to become the Church of England’s first transsexual bishop. “What you are seeing here is someone who is a radical rainbow activist being put in a position ofhigh authority in a diocese,” Murphy said in his video.

Despite Murphy subsequently leaving the church over objections to its plans to introduce same-sex blessings to places of worship, a complaint was made against him under official clergy discipline measures.

Read here (£)