“I didn’t”: trainee priests deny getting married

Oct 8, 2018 by Andrew Symes

by Nicholas Hellen, Sunday Times.

The happy couple walked out of the flower-bedecked church wearing matching buttonholes. Pictures show that a wedding photographer was on hand to capture the moment, away from the church, when they ducked under a shower of confetti [this picture, together with others, can be found on social media but have now been removed from the photographer’s website – ed.].

Had the two young men, both ordinands at Westcott House, an Anglican theological college at Cambridge, defied the teaching of the Church of England by getting married?

Such a move would disrupt a fragile equilibrium established by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the issue of whether to maintain the ban on gay marriage for the clergy.

The younger man, Edwin Wilton-Morgan, 24, appeared to throw down the gauntlet with a statement on his Facebook page that said: “Married to Taylor Wilton-Morgan.”

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Editor’s note: The article concludes with the admission by the young couple that their Facebook relationship descriptor was “misguided”. This appears to be another case where technically, according to the letter of Church of England law, these men are in a civil partnership, and have no doubt have ‘given assurances’ to their Bishop and other supervisors about the nature of their relationship as they begin their training. We are sure to hear Bishops state earnestly that the teaching and practice of the church has not changed. But in practice, the young men see themselves as married, and so does everyone else who knows them. What does the Church of England believe about sex and marriage? This incident shows that it’s ‘whatever you want it to mean’.

see also: Gay marriage tipping point for the CofE reached? By George Conger, Anglican Ink