Mervyn Stockwood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Mervyn Stockwood (May 27, 1913 – January 13, 1995) was Anglican Bishop of Southwark from 1959 to 1980.

Stockwood was born in Bridgend, Wales. Originally vicar of St Matthew's, Moorfields, in 1955 he was appointed as vicar of Great St Mary's, Cambridge. [1] A flamboyant figure, he was for a time a Labour councillor.

Stockwood was encouraging of both the radical and conservative wings of the church. Encouraging priests wearing jeans in public, marches against racism and the training of "worker priests" in the Southwark Ordination Course.

He is particularly remembered for his appearance on the BBC chat show Friday Night, Saturday Morning, alongside Christian broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge, arguing that the film Monty Python's Life of Brian was blasphemous. He memorably told John Cleese and Michael Palin at the end of the discussion that they would "get their thirty pieces of silver".

He was a gay bishop, but also celibate. He in fact mildly rebuked a parish priest for blessing a same-sex union in the 1970s.

In his autobiography On Chanctonbury Ring, Stockwood claimed to have had numerous paranormal experiences.[2] A supporter of the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Study, he said of the matter "Our job is to examine the evidence without presupposition or jumping to conclusions. The weakness of the Church has been its refusal to consider the evidence and discuss it."

Michael De-la-Noy's biography of him, Mervyn Stockwood: A Lonely Life, paints him as a socialist who loved the trappings of wealth, privilege and Royalty.