Warm welcome for former Dean of Tuam

TUAM'S FORMER Church of Ireland Dean, Rev Ian ­Corbett, who resigned his post in controversial circumstances in 1999, returned to Ireland at the weekend to speak in Dublin. [private] He resigned from his post following what he said was 'criticism of him because of a paper he wrote for the 1998 Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops where he proposed that it was possible to be Christian and gay'. (None of this criciticism was expressed in Tuam, where he was very popular.) He now serves as an assistant priest in the benefice of East Clevedon, Bristol. The former Dean was warmly welcomed when he spoke at a public lecture on Saturday at St Catherine and St James Church, Donore Avenue, Dublin as part of the AGM of Changing Attitude Ireland. He said 'It is moving for me to be invited back to Ireland as it was the reaction to my speaking out in the context of the 1998 Lambeth Conference that led me to leave Ireland prematurely.' He commented that he found that 'ordinary people in the Church of Ireland were now ahead of their clergy in their experience of and acceptance of gay people.' He told the audience that he was told by a senior cleric in the Catholic Church at the time of his resignation that 'some Catholics are glad that you spoke about this issue because we can't talk about it.' Changing Attitude Ireland is a Church of Ireland organisation of persons heterosexual and gay working for the affirmation of gay persons, which is contributing to the Church's 'Listening Process' on gay sexuality. [/private]