Press release from the Prime Minister’s Office
Appointment of Dean of Canterbury: 11 October 2022
Her Late Majesty The Queen approved the nomination of The Very Reverend Dr David Monteith, Dean of Leicester, for election as Dean of Canterbury.
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
Published 11 October 2022
Her Late Majesty The Queen approved the nomination of The Very Reverend Dr David Monteith, Dean of Leicester, for election as Dean of Canterbury, in succession to The Very Reverend Dr Robert Willis following his retirement.
Background
David grew up in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. He was educated at St John’s College, Durham, and trained for ministry at St John’s College, Nottingham. He served his title at All Saints’, Kings Heath, in the Diocese of Birmingham, and was ordained Priest in 1994.
In 1997, David was appointed Curate at St Martin-in-the-Fields, in the Diocese of London, and in 2000 he became Associate Vicar. From 2002, David served as Priest-in-Charge at Holy Trinity, Wimbledon, in the Diocese of Southwark, additionally serving as Area Dean of Merton from 2004.
In 2009, he was appointed Team Rector for Merton Priory Team Ministry and additionally went on to serve as Canon Chancellor of Leicester Cathedral. He took up his current role as Dean of Leicester in 2013. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws in 2016, from the University of Leicester, which acknowledges his role in the community including overseeing the re-interment of King Richard III in Leicester Cathedral in 2015.
As Dean of Leicester, David has chaired the St Philip’s Centre for Interfaith Dialogue and led and chaired the Bishop of Leicester’s Rural Commission. He currently chairs the Church of England College of Deans.
David shares his life in a Civil Partnership with David Hamilton, a palliative care and bereavement counsellor.
Update
There is more on the Canterbury Cathedral website. This includes the date of the new dean’s installation: Saturday 17 December at 15.00.
A very sad loss for Leicester. But it has been clear to us for a long time that he was destined for greater things. We all wish David and David well in their new role. Canterbury will be blessed.
May God bless David in his new role, as he and the other David presumably prepare to move to new contexts.
How refreshing, that in the official personal details, their civil partnership is openly acknowledged, and not erased.
I agree, it is refreshing, but note who the announcer is.
I assume the PM’s office is far more tolerant of official civil processes than certain Archbishops Who Shall Not Be Named.
To be fair, David’s civil partnership is acknowledged twice on the Canterbury Cathedral website (linked above), albeit not by Justin who may have felt it wise not to stir the pot while LLF is still running its course.
It is interesting that he and his predecessor an an acting basis Jane Hedges are both alumni of St John’s College Durham.
What very good news for the Church of England. At last, a same-sex-partnered priest – who has nothing to hide – appointed to a prestigious position in the ancient Diocese of Canterbury. And what a blessing his partner must be – to the bereaved and dying. Thanks be to God for this appointment. (Sorry, Leicester, you seem to be giving up a treasure! – but you have helped this couple of Christians to become themselves)
How strange and perverse is the Church of England. Tutu’s priest daughter was forbidden to conduct the funeral of her godfather in a CofE church allegedly by a diktat of Hereford and Canterbury, the apparent problem being her same-sex partnership.
I am delighted to hear about the new Dean of Canterbury but it makes the Tutu issue the more illogical and inconsistent. No doubt some sad legal excuse will be offered in response to this . That would make the matter worse. Lord what fools these mortals be!
Agreed – especially since civil partnerships and civil marriages are legally identical arrangements such that if one ‘converts’ the former to the latter then the date of the marriage is backdated to that when the the civil partnership was formed. The pretence by the Church of England’s bishops that there is any substantive difference is just a fiction/fig-leaf that allows clergy such as David Monteith to be appointed a Dean when others in apparently identical living arrangements have their licences removed.
We’re told that there’s no hanky panky in clerical civil partnerships so I suppose that explains the coy language used. As you say the distinction made by the church is absurd.
The trouble is that it is thought of as illegitimate hanky-panky rather than an expression of committed love!
As the official stance on clerical partnerships it is both absurd and grossly dishonest.
We need to be very clear about using correct labels here. I suspect the problem with the Rev’d Mpho Tutu van Furth was not that she was in a same sex partnership, but that she was in a legally constituted same-sex marriage. If she had been in some other form of same sex relationship, such as a civil partnership, or some form of undeclared informal arrangement, then I suspect that nobody would have objected. I am not certain about the bishop’s thinking, but I suspect it is something to do with a marriage being held to imply that the couple… Read more »
Yes, Simon. Roman Catholics are not the only ones to use the old-fashioned device of casuistry – which used to be attached to the Jesuits. A clever use of language meant to deliberately defuse any criticism. Where I come from (in the English Midlands) they are used to calling a spade ‘a spade’.
Are you sure that bishops of a particular cast of mind could be seen to be indulging in a legalistic game to shore up their own position?
I do fear it is, in truth, because same sex relationships scare the pants off certain evangelicals.
My own background is as a CofE Licensed Lay Minister who entered a formal same-sex marriage a few years back, and I know from that experience that in the mind of the bishops there is a very clear distinction between same-sex marriage and a civil partnership.
This document may be helpful in giving the policy, but it does not (to my mind) explain the theology or thinking behind why one is acceptable and the other not.
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/House%20of%20Bishops%20Pastoral%20Guidance%20on%20Same%20Sex%20Marriage.pdf
Exactly, Simon. I think it’s called ‘equivocation’. One wonders whether the real nitty-gritty involves any sexual involvement?
Simon, its all the same! The present ruling is untheological gobble de gook. The church over theologised marriage about 1000 years ago…it was all a control game!
When he is elected, by the canons of Canterbury, will he have to have been formally approved by the King also?
The Dean is not elected by the canons of Canterbury. That has never been the case in the New Foundation cathedrals (though it used to be true in the Old Foundations until the 1830s). The Dean is appointed by the Crown. Once they are installed they are in post and get the stipend.
Which then adds to the complications of the discussions in this thread about the difference between civil partnership and same-sex marriage.
Because the Archbishops’ appointments secretary, who I presume would have been closely involved in this appointment, is Stephen Knott.
In July 2021 Stephen married Major General Alastair Bruce of Crionaich, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, in St John’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, with the Bishop of Edinburgh officiating.
Thank you.
There’s a lot of it to read, but people interested in the finer points of such things will find all the answers here:
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/Appointment%20Process%20for%20Deans.pdf
On my reading, the Archbishop of Canterbury both appoints the Chair of the Selection Panel and as diocesan is also a member of it. As the Canterbury Deanery is a Crown appointment, No 10 Downing Street will have been consulted.