Protestantism, as best I understand it, puts a big emphasis on the individual’s right to follow the lights of their own conscience. So when the Bishop of Willesden, Pete Broadbent said on Facebook:

“I think we need a party in Calais for all good republicans who can’t stand the nauseating tosh that surrounds this event. I managed to avoid the last disaster in slow motion between Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll, and hope to avoid this one too … I wish them well, but their nuptials are nothing to do with me. Leave them to get married somewhere out of the limelight and leave them alone … I give the marriage seven years.”

he was probably speaking for many readers of this site apart from the bit about wishing them well. His boss, Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, takes a slightly different view and has “asked” Pete “to withdraw from public ministry until further notice.” That’s a bit mean and Pete has given one of those apologies which doesn’t really suggest that he has changed his mind – "I recognise that the tone of my language and the content of what I said were deeply offensive, and I apologise unreservedly for the hurt caused".

That’s much the same as saying “I knew it would piss you off when I cussed your mum and I sincerely apologise for reminding everyone that I think she’s a slag”.

Bishop Chartres is missing a trick here. Sure Pete’s views might cheese off some reactionary traditionalists and BBC newsreaders but they are probably pretty popular with just the sort of hip, anti-authoritarian god seeker that the Church of England is keen to recruit. If a broad church can’t accommodate them then it isn’t really that broad.

Support from a site like this is probably not what Pete needs as he’s sent off to the wilderness for a bit of self-flagellation or whatever they do in the CoE but let’s stand with him in his Gethsemane and thank him for saying what had to be said.