Locals are comparing an elderly former priest to Judas for marrying a male model more than a half-century his junior.
Seventy-eight-year-old Rev. Philip Clements married his 24-year-old partner Florin Marin, a male model from Romania.
In a letter to the editor, one person made “an interesting parallel, rather appropriately, leading up to Easter, between Judas Iscariot, who was with Jesus for the three years of his earthly ministry and yet misunderstood him so much,”
The letter continued: “We now have the ex-vicar of Eastry, who has spent even more time in Christian service [than Judas] without understanding the Bible or Christianity, now trying to force the church into his views about marrying gay clergy.”
The couple is now pushing for the Church of England to change its stance on homosexuality.
Despite recent pushback, “The Church of England cannot support the proposal to enable—all couples, regardless of their gender, to have a civil marriage ceremony. Such a move would alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history. Marriage benefits society in many ways, not only by promoting mutuality and fidelity, but also by acknowledging an underlying biological complementarity which, for many, includes the possibility of procreation.” {eoa}
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