By Emmanuel Joseph
A group of St Clement’s Anglican Church members is demanding the resignation of their priest-in-charge, Reverend Graveney Bannister, and is so adamant he must go that they are preparing to take the unusual step of protesting outside the St Lucy church come Sunday.
Longstanding member Louise Armstrong said those supporting the action have had enough of the way in which Bannister has been managing the affairs of the church.
She said they have had “some serious problems” with Reverend Bannister “for the past three years or so”.
Their grievances concern the decline in church life, the absence of ministries such as providing hampers to the needy and a previously active youth band.
“We have appealed in every way to the Bishop [Right Reverend Michael Maxwell] to have something done and no help is coming. So, the congregation has decided that it is time for us to take action. And on Sunday morning, we are going to protest at the front of the church,” Armstrong said in an interview with Barbados TODAY.
“We are not, of course, going to disrupt the church, no way, and we are having a few placards. . . We want him removed.”
One group member, expressing their determination to protest, declared, “The only thing that could turn us back now is an act of God.”
When contacted, Reverend Bannister declined to comment, but Archdeacon, The Very Reverend Eric Lynch, revealed that two complaints have been forwarded to the Rural Dean for St Peter, Reverend Beverley Sealy-Knight, responsible for St Clement’s.
The Anglican Church follows a process for handling complaints, involving examination by the Rural Dean and potential legal review by the Registrar.
Archdeacon Lynch emphasised the church’s preference for resolving grievances internally though he acknowledged that matters sometimes become public in a small society.
He stressed the importance of using established processes for addressing concerns about church laws and discipline.
“The rural dean will examine the particular thing, and sometimes that information gets passed to the registrar who will seek to bring a perspective from a legal view. I will only . . . enter by getting an update on how matters are going if it has reached that stage. In terms of a protest, I have no knowledge of it,” he said.
“We would always want to use a process by which persons share with us what concerns they have, and we seek to have that addressed by the rector or priest in charge. Our approach is that as persons would have matters to clarify about church laws, discipline and so on, you start off with the rural dean and then to the archdeacon, or, in some cases, if it is something that requires some explanation from the legal side, our registrar or chancellor.”
About the dispute, Rural Dean Reverend Sealy-Knight would only say: “It will be looked into.”
The church group has also submitted a petition to Bishop Maxwell, who was unavailable for comment up to the time of publication.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
