UK's first female archbishop tells of how she hid her sexuality for decades

The Guardian

2 days ago

The new archbishop of Wales, the Most Rev Cherry Vann, has told of how she kept her sexuality secret for decades as part of her struggle to be accepted as a female minister in the Anglican communion.
Speaking to the Guardian on Thursday, the day after her appointment, Vann, 66, said that without the strong belief that God had called her to the priesthood she 'would not have survived' her journey through the ranks of the church.
Vann became one of the first female priests to be ordained in England in 1994. Now, as the UK's first female and first openly gay archbishop, and the first openly lesbian and partnered bishop to serve as a primate within the Anglican communion, she has well and truly broken the stained glass ceiling.
'It happens that I've lived in a time that's meant that I'm a trailblazer, but I'm not a campaigner,' the Leicestershire-born archbishop said during an interview at the Church in Wales's offices in central Cardiff.
'I'm not somebody to be out there all the time but I do seek to be true to what I think God's asking of me.'
Working in the Church in Wales since 2020 has been very different from the many years Vann spent at the Church of England, she said, as clergy are permitted to be in same-sex civil partnerships. In the Anglican church in England, same-sex relationships are technically allowed, but gay clergy are expected to remain celibate.
Upon becoming bishop of Monmouth five years ago, Vann publicly disclosed her civil partnership with Wendy Diamond, her partner of 30 years, for the first time.
'Other people in England were braver than I was and made their sexuality clear. A lot of them suffered the consequences of that, certainly when going forward for ordination,' Vann said.
'For years we kept our relationship secret because I worried about waking up and finding myself outed on the front page of a newspaper. Now, Wendy joins me everywhere, and when I take services, it's just normal. But in England she had to stay upstairs if I had a meeting in the house.'
Being a woman in the church had been difficult enough, she added. 'You can hide your sexuality, up to a point, but you can't hide being a woman. There was a lot of nastiness; the men were angry, they felt they had been betrayed.'
Vann said in the 1990s, she and a handful of other female priests began meeting for prayer and conversation with male colleagues opposed to their ordination. 'It was awful, it was really difficult for all of us, but we stuck at it,' she said.
Over time, the hostility dissipated. 'This is what I'm hoping around the sexuality issue too – modelling that we can vehemently disagree about something, but we can still love one another in Christ and recognise one another as children of God.'
Vann will be enthroned in red and gold at her home cathedral in Newport this autumn in what many in the church hope will mark a definitive end to a tumultuous period.
Andy John, the former archbishop, announced in June he was standing down with immediate effect after an alcohol-fuelled financial, bullying and sexual misconduct scandal at Bangor Cathedral.
John was not accused of wrongdoing, but calls for his resignation gathered pace after summaries of two reports were published and six 'serious incident reports' were sent to the Charity Commission earlier this year.
Two members of the cathedral's college of priests have called for an independent inquiry into the events at Bangor, but Vann downplayed the demands, telling the Guardian that she believed the Wales-wide 'cultural audit' announced by the church's representative body in the wake of John's resignation would be sufficient to 'hold people accountable'.
The new archbishop's top priority is 'healing and reconciliation', she said. 'There's a lot of work already going on in the background, we haven't been standing still … We must work to build trust with those who have been hurt and angered by what has gone on.'
Sign up to First Edition
Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters
after newsletter promotion
According to Tim Wyatt, a journalist focusing on the Anglican church, Vann's arrival in Wales in 2020 as bishop of Monmouth was also part of a clean-up job after factional fighting over the conduct of her predecessor, Richard Pain.
Vann is also somewhat of an outsider to Wales, symbolising a clean break with the John era and the Bangor scandal.
The archbishop grew up in a religious family in Whetstone in Leicestershire, following in her church organist father's footsteps by studying at the Royal College of Music and then the Royal Schools of Music, where she trained as a teacher.
She entered an Anglican theological college in 1986 to prepare for ordination and then worked in the Manchester diocese, becoming a priest in 1994 and archdeacon of Rochdale in 2008.
Gender and sexuality are still highly divisive issues in the Anglican communion. Even in her new role as the first female and first openly gay archbishop in the UK, Vann was cautious on the topic of gay marriage.
'I don't personally feel the need to get married in church; Wendy and I have been together for 30 years, we've made our vows, and we are committed to each other.
'Gay marriage in church is inevitable, I think: the question is when. There are people who are very opposed, and as leader, I have to honour their position, which is theologically grounded. It isn't my job to push something through that would alienate a good proportion of clergy.'
Vann's appointment has caused outrage in some circles, with one prominent conservative group calling it 'tragic'. In response, the Church in Wales has highlighted the warm welcome her appointment has received from dozens of other denominations and churches.
For her part, Vann said she was not worried about whether her election would be perceived as tokenistic.
'It's a two-thirds majority vote in the electoral college, the bar is high,' she said. 'I don't think any of those people voted for me primarily because I'm a woman or I'm a gay person. They voted for me because they recognise I've got the skills to lead the Church in Wales at this particular time.'