Queen’s former chaplain converts to Catholicism because Church of England is too ‘politically correct’
Gavin Ashenden has announced his conversion to Catholicism. (Gavin Ashenden/ Facebook)
The Queen’s former Anglican chaplain has said he is converting to Catholicism because the Church of England has ‘swallowed political correctness’ like trans rights.
Gavin Ashenden, who also happens to be a climate change denier, personally quit the Church of England in 2017.
He resigned from his position in protest over increasing inclusion of LGBT+ people, and said that it had accepted “values that are anti-Christian”.
Ashenden, who served as special chaplain to the Queen from 2008 until 2017, wrote in the Mail on Sunday that the Church of England had “switched sides” in the “culture war”.
He said he believes “what Catholicism teaches us is true”, and that he has “come to the conclusion that in some important respects Britain is starting to resemble Soviet-era Eastern Europe”.
Ashenden continued: “Too often, called upon to defend Christian values, [the Church of England] has remained astonishingly silent.
“Nowhere is this starker today than in the highly-charged debate over transgender rights, particularly regarding children and teenagers… The huge rise in minors seeking potentially irreversible treatment to transition from male to female – or, increasingly, vice versa – surely sets alarm bells ringing.
“Today’s children are bombarded with social media messages sowing doubts about what was a cast-iron certainty of childhood: you are a boy or a girl.”
He added: “Against this confusing backdrop, the Church of England could provide some certainty. It could help by reminding people that God loves us for who we are, not who we identify as.
“It could defend doctors who profess that the vast majority of us are born one of two sexes – male or female – and that no amount of drugs, surgery or self-identification will override our fundamental biology… Rather than resist such political correctness, and offer a Christian critique, the Church of England has swallowed it wholesale.”
Ashenden described what he calls “today’s threat” as “Marxism 2.0”. He added: “I now believe only the Catholic church has the courage, integrity and conviction to hold the Christian ground… If we give way any further, we risk another Iron Curtain.”
Former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, who came under fire earlier this year for suggesting that “science may yet produce” a cure for homosexuality, supported Ashenden’s conversion.
Also a convert to Catholicism, Widdecombe told the Daily Mail that his “high-profile” conversion shows that the Church of England had been “on a downward trajectory for decades”.
She said: “One of the reasons I left the C of E in 1993 was because it didn’t seem to know what it thought on anything at all. Nothing has improved since then. Indeed, it’s got worse.”
