CURATE S DEATH

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3809, 16 September 1936, Page 6

CURATE S DEATH

A BISHOP’S ACTION. SON REPELLED FROM HOLY COMMUNION. London, July 15. A son whom an inquest jury decribed as “callous” has been forbidden to attend holy communion in the diocese of Chichester by the bishop, Dr. G. K. A. Bell. This penalty, unprecedented in the recent history of the church, has been imposed on Mr. James Francis Bunting, a young film scenario writer, of Ferring-on-Sea, Sussex. His parents, the Rev. William Henry Boyne Bunting, aged 70, and Mrs. Bunting, aged 51, were found gassed at Camelsdale, near Haslemere, after sending an urgent request to their son for £3OO. A verdict of suicide while of unsound mind was recorded, and the jury added: “We think the son has been very callous in not coming forward to see his father, knowing the amount of distress in which he was and his difficulties.” The ban was made known by Mr. Bunting himself. He revealed that he had received a letter from the Bishop of Chichester to the effect that he was not to present himself for holy communion in any place of worship in the diocese until further order. The bishop wrote on July 9:— “Dear Sir, —I write as bishop of the diocese in which youi - father, the Rev. W. R. Boyne Bunting, was serving at the time of his unhappy death to inform you that I have read with great sorrow the account of the coroner’s inquest. “I have received a personal report also from those who were present at the inquest upon your father and mother, and I have noted the rider attached to the verdict at the jury’s request, and its reference to your callousness as a son, a- rider which, I am sorry to say, appears to be fully justified. “I desire you to take note that in view of the grave wrong indicated in the rider which you have done to your neighbours and the Church, you must not present yourself for holy communion in any church or place of worship in the Diocese of Chichester until further order is given. “The wrong which you have done is one that calls for much repentance, and I will call upon you to consider how gravely you have sinned and how necessary it is for you that you should repent. “Should you have anything to say as to why you should not be thus repelled from the holy communion I am ready to hear it. “In the meantime this order stands.” Mr. Bunting’s Answer. “It is a pity,” said Mr. Bunting, “that an attempt was not made to inquire into the real circumstances. ... I am not going to quibble about the money I received. I had between £3OOO and £4OOO from them, but my father, in the letter, plainly stated that he did not attach any blame to me because I had pulled up in recent months and was now setting out on a career in which I was making good and had started to help them.” The Bishop of Chichester expressed surprise that Mr. Bunting had seen fit to make the personal letter public. Public exclusion from communion in the Church of England is extremely rare and as a rule only follows a public scandal which reflects upon the church herself. Exclusion itself, however, is not so infrequent. It is usually not made public, and the persons affected frequently make their peace with the church where that is possible. Bishop’s Statement.

When Dr. Bell was asked whether his action amounted to an excommunication, he said: “It is quite intelligible that the situation should be magnified, because Mr. Bunting has gone out of his way to publish a letter which was written to him personally. A bishop is sometimes obliged to say to a particular member of the church that, owing to some offence that he has committed, he should not present himself for communion for a time, and my letter was exactly following that kind of procedure.” Dr. Bell said that it was a matter of opinion as to whether or hot the ban he had placed on Mr. Bunting was an “excommunication.” “It is a psstoral decision of the bishop in relation to a member of the church living in his diocese,” he added. Dr. Barnes Disagrees. Dr. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, dissociates himself decisively from Dr. Bell’s action. “It is taken, of course, under the rule in the Prayer Book. The rule is happily obsolete. I should not myself condemn a man on the rider attached to the verdict of a coroner’s jury where the jury was not set to inquire into the man’s conduct. If a man goes to holy communion from right motives, the blacker his past conduct the more cordially should we all welcome him. In brief, it is the duty of the Church to make

good citizens, not to make bad ones worse.”

Not Blamed by Parents. Mr. Bunting declares that in reading a letter from his father at the inquest the cqroner omitted a passage which stated that his parents absolved him from blame. “I shall take every necessary step to try to get my name cleared for the sake of my family and friends,” he said. Man of Profound Knowledge. The Bishop of Chichester is regarded in the church as one of the most experienced statesmen, for his long experience as chaplain to the late Archbishop of Canterbury from 1914 to 1924 has made him an ecclesiastic of deep knowledge. As well as his pastoral work he has been trying to bring about reunion between the churches, and his writings on the Church of England and the Free Churches and his speeches at the Stockholm conference mark him out as a bishop with wide vision. The Bishop of Manchester (Dr. F. S. G. Warman) holds the view that the Bishop of Chichester would not have acted without good reason. Canon Peter Green, of Manchester, knows of no man whose opinion he would sooner rely on than the Bishop of Chichester. Will Convocation Act? Mr. Bunting has taken advice, and legal action is envisaged. Should such action be taken, it will be the first case of its kind within living memory, and almost alone in the annals of the reformed Church of England. Persons who are banned from communion by their diocesan bishop are entitled to seek redress, should they feel themselves wronged, through the medium of the Convocations. Any proctor, dean, or archdeacon, or other member of the Lower House may present to the Upper House a gravamen seeking the nullification of the bishop’s action. A bishop in the Upper House may take action to the same purpose. The person excommunicated can in canon law take no action of his own. Action in Convocation has not, however, been taken for several centuries. Bishop and Suicide Pact. The law of the church regarding the burial of suicides was defended by the Bishop of Chichester, preaching in Camelsdale Church, at a memorial service for Mr. Bunting and his wife At the funeral, the bodies, by direction of the bishop, were not taken into the church, but the full burial service was read in Shottermill Cemetery. After paying a tribute to Mr. Bunting’s faithful ministry, the bishop said: .“The church maintains very clearly that in burying a man who has taken his life we cannot treat that man exactly as we treat a man who dies an ordinary death. I know some have pleaded that the case is different when a minister of the Gospel is concerned, and that the body of the minister and the minister’s wife should have been brought into Camelsdale Church for the first part of the funeral service just because he he was the minister. “If I, in loyalty to the church’s teaching, order as I have directed, in other parishes, that the body of the layman who has taken his life should not be brought into the church for a part of the burial service, how much more importance I am bound to give the same direction in the case of the priest of the church whose knowledge and responsibility are much larger than the layman?