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Murder of priest a social indictment
by Tom Harpur
Toronto Author / Broadcaster
Monday, November 15, 2:30 on a grey afternoon. Mist shrouded the tops of the towers and muffled the chimes of the steeple clock of St. James Cathedral, Toronto. Inside, a packed crowd of nearly 900 had come to a Requiem Eucharist. But, in the midst of all that "high" Anglican pomp and splendour - clouds of incense, resplendent robes, processional candles, bowing and chanting - the dominant emotions were not those of grief and sorrow. The rpeacher, Canon Glenn Pritchard, spoke of feelings of "bewilderment, frustration, betrayal and anger."
The body in the pall-covered casket was that of Rev. Warren Eling, a curate of St. James from 1964-1973. Eling, 53, had served in various Toronto parishes for 30 years before moving to Montreal two years ago. He was found dead in the pillaged rectory of his church on Wednesday, November 10. He had been brutally strangled. His half-naked body was found on a bed with his hands tied behind his head. His car was found abandoned on the Toronto waterfront on November 12. Police say that Elgin, unmarried, was gay and frequented bars in Montreal's west end. His bishop, Rt. Rev. Andrew Hutchison, has said: "If the speculation is correct that this crime is in some way related to sexual orientation, then we are doubly outraged, for it makes of it not simply a violent crime, but one motivated by hatred." The Montreal gay community says Eling is the 14th homosexual slain in three years in that city.
I knew Warren Eling as a brother priest. We were not close friends but he used to write occasionally to remark on a column. Sitting there, my mind flashed back to the last time I saw him alive. It was on Christmas Day, 1991. He ws then the Rector of St. Anne's, Gladstone Ave. I had once served as a curate there while still a student and was always taken by the great beauty of the place, with its Byzantine dome and its famous ceiling paintings. My wife, Susan, had never been for a service so we had decided to go.
A strange thing happened. Warren, who hadn't seen us come in, mounted the pulpit. He said he had decided not to give a homily but instead to read something he had clipped from a newspaper. To my total surprise, he then read out my Christmas column from the day before. When he saw us leaving afterwards, there was much joking and laughter all round. Then, he invited us for a seasonal drink at the rectory next door.
Warren Eling was, as everyone who knew him agrees, an exemplary minister and a witty, talented man. The Very Rev. Duncan S. Abraham, Dean of St. James, told me this week that Eling had "a tremendous impact" in all the parishes he served, including St. James. In the service itself, Bishop Terence Finlay, Anglican Bishop of Toronto, described him as a "gifted priest and a good person." In an interview, Hutchison, the Anglican Bishop of Montreal, told me Warren was "a super priest." He never told his parishioners he was gay. In fact, the funeral preacher, Canon Glenn Pritchard, told the mourners that the most common comment from everybody has been: "We thought we knew Warren..." He went on to comment: "Perhaps he wasn't free to let us know him."
That's precisely the point.
Eling was gay and if, as it seems, he was the victim of entrapment by a serial killer of gays, it's not just our homophobic society in general that has to examine its conscience and take steps to end homophobic hatred and violence. The Christian Church, and the Anglican Church in particular, has some deep soul-searching to do. The current Anglican (and Roman Catholic) rule of ordaining gays but forbidding all expression of gayness is forcing many priests to live double lives. They're compelled to lie and deceive - and to engage in casual sex with all the risks. It involves the church in hypocracy and the clergy in practices dangerous to their own well-being, spiritually and every other way. As Abraham says: "We drive them to it by our policy." He is convinced, as I am also, that the "only fair and just solution" to the problem is Christian acceptance and "some form of service or rite of affirmation" in which the church could bless the lifelong union of any committed same-sex couple wanting it.
It's not enough to be outraged over Eling's death. Anglicans must ask themselves the hard question: "Would Warren have been picked up by a killer in a bar setting (his home had no sign of forced entry) if he had been able to let people know openly who and what he was and to form a fulfilling relationship with one person?" As Pritchard said in his sermon, Anglicans find it easy to lay blame for crimes like Eling's murder at "every doorstep but our own." It's time to end the pretence and the silence. What's more, there are homosexuals in every denomination. It would help enormously to combat violence against all gays if more churches would join the real world and face up to this. Today, religion is a major player in reinforcing anti-gay prejudice.
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