Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu-Van Furth has revealed that her licence to preach is being revoked because she married a woman – so, she’s decided to quit instead.

Newlyweds Mpho and Marceline Tutu-Van Furth are on honeymoon on the Indian Ocean island of Bali after their wedding at a Franschhoek wine estate attended by Mpho’s parents, Leah and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

“Bali is quite magical,” said Mpho in an email to City Press, adding that she had decided to “give up” her ministerial duties – her authority to preside at Holy Communion, and to officiate at weddings, baptisms and funerals in South Africa.

“Because the South African Anglican Church does not recognise our marriage, I can no longer exercise my priestly ministry in South Africa,” she said. “The bishop of the Diocese of Saldanha Bay [Bishop Raphael Hess] was instructed to revoke my licence.

“I decided that I would give it to him rather than have him take it, a slightly more dignified option with the same effect.”

While same-sex marriage was legalised in South Africa in 2006, the South African Anglican law on marriage states: “Holy matrimony is the lifelong and exclusive union between one man and one woman.”

Source:  City Press