Swedish priest sacked for protesting woman bishop
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Published: 16 Feb, 2019 CET.
Updated: Sat 16 Feb 2019 17:59 CET
A Swedish priest has been sacked after protesting that his new woman bishop "could never be a spiritual leader".
Susanne Rappmann became the first ever woman ordained Bishop of Gothenburg in November 2017, ten years after Christina Odenberg, Bishop of Lund until 2017, broke the threshold.
After Rappmann's election, the priest wrote a letter to the diocese protesting the decision, saying that a woman priest could never be a spiritual leader "for us priests who take a classical view of the position".
The letter was sent to the diocese's so-called 'Domkapitlet', an internal court which judges whether priests are fulfilling the oaths they took when taking holy orders.
In the first weeks of this year, the court ruled that the priest should be stripped of his duties on the grounds that he had broken his oath of loyalty.
"Every priest and deacon who is ordained into the Swedish church is under the bishop's supervision," Karin Burstrand from the Domkapitlet told the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper. "If you say, 'no, I am not able to recognize the bishop', then you have said no to the whole system."
Rappmann, who normally chairs the Domkapitlet, took no part in the decision because her involvement would have been a conflict of interest.
The priest has appealed.
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Susanne Rappmann became the first ever woman ordained Bishop of Gothenburg in November 2017, ten years after Christina Odenberg, Bishop of Lund until 2017, broke the threshold.
After Rappmann's election, the priest wrote a letter to the diocese protesting the decision, saying that a woman priest could never be a spiritual leader "for us priests who take a classical view of the position".
The letter was sent to the diocese's so-called 'Domkapitlet', an internal court which judges whether priests are fulfilling the oaths they took when taking holy orders.
In the first weeks of this year, the court ruled that the priest should be stripped of his duties on the grounds that he had broken his oath of loyalty.
"Every priest and deacon who is ordained into the Swedish church is under the bishop's supervision," Karin Burstrand from the Domkapitlet told the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper. "If you say, 'no, I am not able to recognize the bishop', then you have said no to the whole system."
Rappmann, who normally chairs the Domkapitlet, took no part in the decision because her involvement would have been a conflict of interest.
The priest has appealed.
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