Sir, Since we are threatened with weeks of comment on the unhappy plight of the Church of England (“Church in meltdown over gays and women”, June 16), might a reader plead for a rigorous shunning of such terms as “liberal”, “traditionalist”, “conservative” and “progressive”? They obscure the issues and incline your readers to make up their minds without any further thought. Is it helpful to describe as “traditionalist” someone who opposes the consecration of women as bishops yet celebrates (in both senses) the marriage of gay priests?

There are two separate and fundamental issues: open homosexuality among priests (which is a matter of sexual morality), and the consecration of women as bishops (which is not). Nothing is gained by confusing them by the use of loaded epithets.

Harry Judge
Oxford

Sir, The Church of England has a code of practice relating to the pastoral care of homosexual couples. Martin Dudley “strongly disagrees” with these guidelines, and has acted otherwise. He is free to do so, since codes of practice cannot be binding in law nor (conclusively) in conscience.

At the same time, the House of Bishops has recommended that an agreed code of practice will be sufficient for the pastoral care of those who will not receive the ministry of female bishops, or those ordained by them.

Can they be serious?

The Rev Canon Brian Findlay
Monks Eleigh, Suffolk

Sir, The 39 Articles of the Church of England (1562) make it clear that priests are free to “marry at their own discretion”. By choosing to augment their civil partnership with a ceremony in church, the Revs Peter Cowell and David Lord have cleverly bypassed the bishops’ absurd rules about civil partnership, and honoured the Anglican tradition to its very roots.

Maybe bishops should spend more time reading the documents of their own Church, and less time writing new ones?

Incidentally, it was the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer that was the first liturgy to acknowledge that marriage was about “mutual society, help, and comfort”. The event at St Bartholomew’s was the logical culmination of that theological approach. And it is good.

The Rev Richard Haggis
Oxford

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