THE appointment of openly gay ministers would rip the Church of Scotland apart, according to the kirk’s next moderator.

In a significant departure from the views of his two most recent predecessors, Rev David Lacy said the kirk could not afford to ordain ministers known to be homosexual.

There has been a continuing debate in the church since last year when Professor Ian Torrance, the then moderator, said he would be “utterly untroubled” by the election of gay ministers as long as they were “disciplined and effective”.

It was the first time the church’s most senior cleric had said that the sexuality of ministers should not act as a bar to their appointment.

Dr Alison Elliot, the current moderator, also supported the ordination of openly gay ministers so long as they are not sexually active. However in an interview with The Sunday Times, Lacy said there was too much opposition to such a radical shift in the church’s position.

He knew non-practising gay ministers in the Church of Scotland and shared their sense of hurt and frustration that they could not be open about their sexuality.

However, he added that sanctioning openly gay ministers posed too grave a risk for the church, which has dwindling congregations.

“The church is evenly divided and it would rip itself apart,” he said. “I find myself truly representative of the church in that sometimes I believe we should not appoint gay ministers and at other times I really believe we should.

“I know homosexuals who would be fantastic ministers and in no way would their sexuality interfere with that. One side of me says, ‘Of course God can use them as ministers’.

“But the other side of me says we have severe problems because the Bible in many places is overtly against this. There is something in the back of me saying if God at one time said no to homosexuals then the church at the moment, despite much prayerfulness, cannot be definitive about what He thinks now.”

Lacy, who is based at Henderson parish church in Kilmarnock, conceded that his position — which will be welcomed by the conservative wing of the church — will be regarded as “cowardly” by critics.

“I know it annoys people that we are like that but that’s just the way it is. You cannot change it at the moment,” he said.

“I know genuine people who keep very quiet about it because they don’t wish to cause that harm to the church.

“There are certainly people of homosexual persuasion in the ministry of the Church of Scotland who are non-practising and that’s perfectly legitimate, but they wouldn’t force the issue on the church because they love it despite its failings.

“My heart goes out to them because we just can’t get to grips with the issue and I admire them. They can’t help their sexuality but for the sake of the church they love they don’t practise it.”

Among the leading opponents to a relaxation of church rules is Rev Bill Wallace, a former convener of the kirk’s board of social responsibility and board of ministry.

Last year the Caithness-based minister attacked Torrance’s call for greater tolerance, saying ministers must be faithful within marriage and abstinent outside it.

Wallace claimed that calls for change were “causing considerable distress in many parishes and not advancing the peace and unity of the church”.

Gay campaigners had been hoping for a more liberal decision from the Church of Scotland in a month during which hardline attitudes against homosexuality resurfaced in Europe.

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