My time at homo-erotic college

Spectator, The, Dec 7, 1996 by Oddie, William

Apropos of Paul Johnson's attack on homosexuality in the Church of England, William Od die recalls a place once renowned for it

WELL, he said it, and the consequence foretold by at least one reader duly materialised. If, said J.W. Melville (Letters, 23 November), Paul Johnson `stoops so low as to call it [the Church of England] "the Church of Sodom", he might find that others might stoop so low as to call the Roman Catholic Church the Paedophile Church'.

But Paul Johnson was not claiming, of course, that there is no sodomy, let alone paedophilia, among Roman Catholics (and if we are playing that game, there is plenty of paedophilia among vicars). The point is that in the Church of England sodomy is on the verge of becoming part of that Church's semi-official culture. It can be confidently stated that no Catholic bishop will mount the pulpit in any Catholic cathedral to say (as the Bishop of Guildford at the recent gay jamboree in Southwark said) that `family and household life needs rebuilding in an inclusive way, so that the needs of . . . gay and lesbian people . . . are brought within a community of support and care'. Or, as another Anglican bishop put it the same day, that all personal, sexual relationships had to be reviewed because the Christian code was clearly now 'unworkable'.

According to the Reverend Richard Kirker, secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, if all the gay clergy were to resign, the Church of England would collapse. I am not sure about that, though it would not surprise me. However, the numbers of gay clergy are certainly enormous, particularly in certain dioceses (notably the diocese of London) and among certain constituencies -- notoriously the Anglo-Catholic -- where they tend to concentrate themselves.

Some theological colleges have been traditionally more noted for sodomy than others, though it is probably not too much to say that it is normal in all of them, with the possible exception of some evangelical establishments. The most famous of all used to be St Stephen's House, Oxford (known to its alumni as 'Staggers'), where 20 years ago I was in training for the Anglican priesthood, and where (despite a much publicised purge carried out by the then principal, Father David Hope, now Archbishop of York) I estimated that fully twothirds were openly homosexual, many without doubt actively so.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere at Staggers in my day was certainly more discreet than the overt queening about of the pre-Hope regime, which had been exacerbated by huge quantities of gin - the Reverend Kenneth Leech, a former St Stephen's House student (or `Staggers bag') of this period, described the ethos of AngloCatholicism as `gin, lace and backbiting'. A hardly exaggerated portrait of Staggers at this time is to be found in A.N. Wilson's novel Unguarded Hours (Mr Wilson is a former Staggers bag).

Father Hope had forbidden drinking (except for a pusillanimous glass of bad sherry after Sunday mass) and had thrown out the lace together with all the beautiful old Latin vestments. He had made a connection between elaborate liturgy and queening about, and there was now in force a regime of unrelieved liturgical austerity.

But the centrepiece of Father Hope's reforms had been the supposed purge of the rampant homosexuality of previous years, which had caused such a scandal that Staggers had nearly been closed down. Things had been just as bad at Cuddesdon, the prestigious theological college known for its `old-school mitre' -just outside Oxford, where Robert Runcie had once been principal. There was some resentment at Staggers that they and not Cuddesdon had attracted notoriety; it was rumoured that Cuddesdon had escaped public obloquy because its own scandals had been hushed up by the then Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Reverend Kenneth Woollcombe, who lived nearby.

At any rate, Father Hope's widely bruited blitz on the queens had the desired effect, and Staggers survived ( to become a hotbed of radical feminism following women's ordination).

The official line was unyielding. At one's preliminary interview with the principal, prospective ordinands -- whether straight or gay - were sternly addressed on the subject of chastity. `Any sexual activity outside marriage', Father Hope said to me (as my mouth dropped open in surprise), `will result in immediate dismissal.' It occurred to me later that he had said this to reassure me that things really had changed. I had told him, I think, that two bishops the then Bishop of London, Dr Gerald Ellison, and the Archbishop of York, Dr Donald Coggan - had warned me strongly against the course I was contemplating. `Take very good advice before going to St Stephen's House,' Coggy had said darkly; but I thought this was just low church prejudice.

His suspicions had been justified: in the most important respect of all things had not really changed at all. However respectable - even goody-goody - things were on the surface, the underlying culture of the place was still overwhelmingly homoerotic. There were recognised couples who were undoubtedly at it, and the only question was whether Father Hope knew and was turning a blind eye, or whether he was genuinely unaware of what was going on.