“Not poets but clergymen hastened to meet
Thy redden’d remorselessness, Cardigan Street”
St Barnabas, Oxford, John Betjeman
On 4th September 2018, the Diocese of Oxford posted the notice of a clergy vacancy for the Vicar of St Barnabas and St Paul, with St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford. At the end of the month, the BBC (and others) ran a story Male only vicar job advert ‘misogynistic’, based upon the reaction of a local councillor. The possibility of a “male-only” incumbent should not be a surprise to those cognizant of the procedures of appointing clergy in the Church of England, and they need read no further. Continue reading