Ecumenical Marriage Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the right reverend Prelate and to agree with him. I do so because, as a loyal and active member of the Church of England, I sometimes find that loyalty sorely tested, not least by some in the hierarchy in the Church of England who tend—how can I put this?—to be inclined to the listen less to the views of their congregations and more to the liberal, left-leaning and hand-wringing attitude towards affairs of state with which I find it difficult to agree. However, on this occasion I am delighted to agree with the right reverend Prelate.

This is about ecumenical marriage. My own marriage took place down the road in the Guards’ Chapel and involved both the chaplain of the chapel, who I suppose legally married us, my parents’ excellent priest who remains a great friend, and indeed a great friend of my wife, who is a monk at Ampleforth. It was an ecumenical marriage with Catholic input, and we were very grateful to him for it. I wish to say that I do not oppose anything ecumenical about marriage.

I am also the godfather to two Roman Catholic children. My noble friend Lord Deben expressed his wish that we should be more ecumenical. I should say that they are now both delightful young men, and I am glad to still be their godfather. At the christening of one in Nightingale Square, as I walked across to the church with my friend who is an Anglican but married to a Roman Catholic, he said, “The priest has insisted that all the godparents should be Catholic, so I told him that you were. Could you confirm that if he asks you”? I said, “Actually, no, I am afraid I will not. I will tell him the truth”. Luckily, he did not ask me. I have told this because it is important that we should all take a moderate and reasonable view of ecumenicalism.

I was moved to take part in this debate because I am instinctively uneasy about the measure for three reasons. The first has been much better expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, but it is important that the Church takes the lead and makes decisions in this matter. The Church of England, which is often criticised, is an extremely emollient beast. My noble friend Lord Deben referred to fudge, but it seems to me that the fudge over the christening that I was talking about was just as much fudge as the Church of England ever takes part in. I have always found the Church and bishops to be reasonable.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I am trying to follow my noble friend’s argument and looking at the text of the Bill. In Clause 1, subsections (1), (2) and (3), the word “may” appears, not “will”. It is a permissive Bill. Why is he suggesting that this is a direction to the Church?

[Lord Robathan]

My noble friend makes a good point, but I will come to why I am entirely against the measure in a second, if I may.

My point is that it must be for the Church to decide. If the Church brings forward such a measure, as the right reverend Prelate said, then Parliament may decide because of the nature of the established Church. It is of course the national Church—the established Church. One might say that it is a strange historical quirk, but it is not unreasonable to expect it to make decisions on these matters. Indeed, it would be quite wrong for us to try to influence the Church—let it lead on this matter and not us.

I would not presume to instruct the Roman Catholic Church on its doctrine on abortion, homosexuality or whatever it might be, much of which I profoundly disagree with. I do not always agree with everything that my own Church says, but it would not be for me or any other Anglican to dictate to the Roman Catholic Church how it runs its affairs. For instance, we might have a law proposed in this House that the holy water in the font at the entrance to each Catholic church should be tested for bacteria once every day or week or something—and some Anglican churches as well of course—but that would be going well beyond what any Parliament should do.

I should say to my noble friend Lord Deben that I find it somewhat strange that the measure should be proposed by somebody who has actually rejected the Church of England. That is why I am instinctively uneasy about it and would rather follow the lead of the Church of England than someone who does not actually like the Church of England.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

I wonder if I might take the noble Lord back to his original point that he felt it important that the leadership of the Church of England should listen to the people in the pew, if I may put it like that, like himself. Does he have any evidence that the leadership of the Church of England—I should say that I am a practising Anglican in that I practise regularly but do not seem to get any better at it—has actually consulted him and me? Indeed, I cannot see in the Explanatory Memorandum that the synod has actually taken a view on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Deben. Is this something that, at this stage, the leadership of the Anglican Church has decided on its own? Has he been consulted?

[Lord Robathan]

I am delighted at last to have something on which I entirely agree with the noble Lord, in that I too practise but do not get any better at all, so we have common ground there. However, no, I have not been asked, but then I have not been asked about a great many matters of doctrine or governance of the Church. It may be something that should be brought forward in the synod, which would be a good way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. When I saw on the speakers’ list that my name was figured there, with a B denoting Baroness, I thought that an instant act of transgendering had happened. I then thought that if that could happen at a stroke, perhaps whatever is preventing these marriages taking place can happen with similar prestidigitation. So I rise with the deepest voice that I can command in order to reassure Members of this House.

I am very grateful that the matter has been brought before us. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, explained that the 1949 Act was framed as it was by a Government, or a Parliament, who did not want to upset the established Church. As a Methodist minister I have never worried about upsetting the established Church and I reckon that I might do a little of that in my remarks now.

The noble Lord went on to talk about fudge. I remember reading Seven Types of Ambiguity, a great classical book that we Eng. Lit. students used to read. I think that we have had seven types of fudge, delineated very carefully and skilfully by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. I shall not run away from it, and I shall certainly not indulge in fudge in the hand-wringing, liberal, stereotypical way that was referred to dismissively on the Benches opposite: someone married in the Guards’ Chapel might just feel that giving orders to Methodists is a good thing. I feel that fudge can be a very good, and in a theological sense, a very necessary thing: at the end of the day, however righteous, righteously established and brilliantly organised any Church body might be it cannot claim to have all the wisdom that can be possessed, all the experience that points to correct action. Humbly, under God, even Churches must recognise a higher power. That granted, fudge becomes an honourable thing. I have surfed on the waves of fudge through 50 years of Methodist ministry. Much of the fudge has been necessary, as I have had to discover ways of relating to the established Church.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, also talked about the way non-Anglicans can easily be edged out in ecumenical experiences. I have more experience of being edged out than most people—I have been hidden behind pillars; I have had arguments. I was a canon of St Paul’s Cathedral for 17 years. Organising a procession to go into a service at St Paul’s Cathedral—what the public do not see, in the Dean’s Aisle, behind the curtain—is an extraordinary thing. Precedence is what it is all about. Those of us who are honorary canons must understand our place, between the proper canons, the retired canons, the canons emeriti and those who thought they were canons but never were. It is a terrific thing to have to find your place in all of that when all you are is a Methodist minister.

[Lord Robathan]

Will the noble Lord let me know where he is next preaching? I am enjoying this so much that I would like to come and listen to him.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

I promise the noble Lord that before he goes home I will give him such a list.

I have been a Methodist minister for 50 years and I have had to work out a relationship with the Church of England over the whole of that time. My very first attendance at a Methodist Conference was in 1969, when the Methodist Church, in the days before the internet, voted on a proposal to bring the two churches together. It did it by the required majority—75% of those present and voting—and therefore voted itself out of existence. Then there was a gap as we waited for the Houses of the Convocation, in those days, to tell us whether they were minded so to do—and we discovered that by 68% or whatever it was, they had agreed, but not by 75%, so we had to reinvent ourselves, like David Bowie, and have another life.

One experience of fudge which perhaps noble Lords will be interested to hear part of— I must not disclose all the details: there are secrets involved in fudge—is to perform marriages for families of noble Lords down in the Chapel here. The intricate negotiations with Westminster Abbey could be put into a textbook relating the intricacies of the 4th-century theological search for a Christological doctrine that would suit everybody. But in the end the success was measured by the fact that the dear Anglican priest who came from the Abbey was quite content to be edged out and hidden behind a pillar. So we could do the wedding but he was there to record it and that was that. There are all kinds of imaginative things.

Perhaps as a matter of fact I should explain to the House the difference between a clergyman of the Church of England and those of us who are not. We do not have any authority to perform a marriage unless we have delegated authority from the Registrar-General. The Registrar-General interviews couples, goes through all the procedural aspects of things and, when he is satisfied, issues a certificate which is my authority, delegated by him, to perform the marriage in the building that has been authorised for the purpose. So we have never had the powers and that is the point at the heart of all of this: the Church of England is by law established and priests of the Church of England are also notaries public. They have the public status of officials of the state. They read the banns, they establish the mores, they take all the interviews and so on and they can give themselves authority in the other part of their capacity to perform these acts of marriage. That is where the difference lies.

Incidentally, on the prayer about being united and knitted together, and the part that was not quoted earlier in the debate, perhaps the knitting together is something that has to happen from heart, soul and mind. I hope that the Church of England will be generous enough to say to us Methodists, who have reinvented ourselves, “We were wrong 50 years ago. It is time, as an act of generosity, to take you back into our bosom”. It is our mother Church. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester is here and I am glad to take advantage of his supine position to make this point. I hope he will go away and argue with some conviction in the courts of the Church that it is really time that that horrible act of 1969 was reversed.

Since I am also a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee—perhaps I should have declared that interest at the outset—I feel that the modes of achieving these desirable objectives do exist. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, is absolutely right that this is a desirable objective. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester will have heard the concerns expressed and I hope that he will take the measure of that concern to the courts of the Church, using the facilities that already exist, to bring back to the Ecclesiastical Committee a measure which will endorse and undergird the generous proposal included in the measure being put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Deben.