MINISTER’S DEATH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 201, 15 July 1936, Page 9

MINISTER’S DEATH.

EXCOMMUNICATION AFFAIR. LONDON, July 13. At the inquest into the circumstances of the death of Rev. William Henry Boyne Bunting it was disclosed that he was 70 years of age and curate of Camdsdalc '(Surrey). He had previously held various rectorships in England'. His wife was aged 56. They had formed a suicide pact on July 5. When Bunting did, not arrive, to conduct Sunday services a policeman climbed in his window and found them dead in separate beds. A letter lying on a table said: “The money promised to-day did not arrive. Our son lias had the bulk of our money.” The son, James Bunting, a film writer, gave evidence that lie had had a good deal of his parents’ money, but not the hulk of it. His father rang him ui> and asked him for £3OO. He seemed exceptionally wmried owing to the accumulation of things. To-day lie said his father was of. a very forgiving nature and would have condemned the Bishop of Chichester’s letter excommunicating him (witness). “I intend to pay his creditors, devoting to this everything over £IOO which I carnj’ he said. The excommunication is being widely discussed. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s secretary says: “We are taking no action in the Canterbury diocese.” The Bishops of Manchester and Barrow support the excommunication. The Bishop of Chichester told the Daily Herald that the action he had taken was a pastoral duty imposed upon' the .bishop and based on the rubric at the beginning of the order of Holy Communion in the Prayer Book. Excommunication was not as rare as: might be imagined, but was always treated as a private matter between the Church and the member concerned. The public disclosure in this case would not have been made if Bunting Had not published the letter.