Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu-Van Furth who is the daughter of revered Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has quit the Anglican church in protest of having her license as a reverend revoked.
The reverend who also happens to be a lesbian and only recently married her lover Marceline Van-Furth had her license revoked due to the nature of the marriage.
The pair are currently on their honeymoon on the Indian Ocean island of Bali after their wedding at a Franschhoek wine estate attended by Mpho’s parents, Leah and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Her quitting means she can’t officiate at weddings, funerals or preside over Holy communion.
She said “Because the South African Anglican Church does not recognise our [gay] marriage, I can no longer exercise my priestly ministry in South Africa,” she said.
“The bishop of the Diocese of Saldanha Bay [Bishop Raphael Hess] was instructed to revoke my licence. I decided that I would give it to him rather than have him take it, a slightly more dignified option with the same effect.”
Marceline and Mpho married in December in her home country of Holland. The subject of same-sex marriage has been a big issue in the Anglican church and even though the law supports it, the Anglican church in South Africa still frowns on it.
Mpho is still a priest in the USA where the issue of her sexual orientation is not an issue. She’s also the reinstated executive director of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town.
Her wife Marceline is an atheist and professor of paediatric infectious diseases at the Vrije Universiteit medical centre in Amsterdam.
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