{"id":8059,"date":"2014-03-24T07:23:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T07:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=8059"},"modified":"2014-03-24T07:23:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T07:23:54","slug":"catholic-priest-in-gay-marriage-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=8059","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Priest in ‘gay marriage’ scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gay<\/a>A high-profile Catholic priest has been suspended after an investigation discovered he was in a sham \u2018gay marriage\u2019 to help a Pakistani immigrant stay in Britain.<\/p>\n

Father Donald Minchew \u2013 a former Anglican who converted to Catholicism after attacking the Church of England\u2019s loss\u00a0 of traditional values \u2013 admitted entering into a civil partnership as a favour<\/span> to a family friend desperate to work in Britain.<\/p>\n

Last night the Home Office said it was \u2018determined to crack down on immigration offenders\u2019 and Mustajab Hussain now faces an investigation and possible deportation.<\/p>\n

The priest initially told The Mail on Sunday he would resign, but after a meeting with senior Church leaders, he has now been \u2018withdrawn from public ministry\u2019 pending\u00a0 an investigation.<\/p>\n

Mr Hussain corroborated Father Minchew\u2019s version of events when The Mail spoke to him outside Croydon furniture store Beds4U, of which he is a director.<\/p>\n

He said: “He helped me. That\u2019s it. There is nothing more.”<\/p>\n

He said he had recently been in Islamabad where his wife lived, but he refused to comment on his immigration status.<\/p>\n

However he<\/span> later backtracked, suggesting there had been a gay relationship between him and the cleric, though he produced no evidence for this.<\/p>\n

Father Minchew admitted he had not told the Catholic Church that he was in a civil partnership, adding: \u2018That is an omission on my part and I will have to pay the price for it.\u2019<\/p>\n

He added, however, that he was not ashamed of what he had done, saying it had \u2018no bearing on my ministry\u2019.<\/p>\n

Father Minchew made headlines in 2012 when he criticised<\/span> the Church of England before defecting with about 70 members of his congregation from St Michael and All Angels in Croydon to St Mary\u2019s Catholic Church, a few minutes\u2019 walk away.<\/p>\n

The priest branded the Church of England as \u2018banal\u2019, criticised<\/span> progressive policies such as women priests, and said \u2018you can pick and choose which doctrines you follow\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Church of England allows its clergy to enter civil partnerships if they assure their bishop their relationship is celibate, but the Catholic Church \u2018strongly opposes\u2019 same-sex unions. The scandal follows the jailing of several Church of England clergy for conducting sham marriages to help immigrants get round the law.<\/p>\n

A statement from Monsignor Keith Newton, who oversees Anglican vicars who convert to Catholicism, is to be read at Father Minchew\u2019s Croydon church today.<\/p>\n

It says: \u2018Father Minchew has informed me that this partnership involved no sexual relationship. He deeply regrets his action. He apologises<\/span> unreservedly for any harm or embarrassment he has caused.\u2019<\/p>\n

Father Minchew could also face prosecution for assisting unlawful immigration for entering the sham \u2018marriage\u2019 in 2008, while he was still a Church of England vicar.<\/p>\n

The civil partnership certificate shows the event at the\u00a0 register office in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was witnessed by David Nicholas and Edward Minchew, the priest\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n

Confronted by The Mail on Sunday last week Father Minchew said: “You are talking to a ruined man. I am finished. End of story.”<\/p>\n

The 66-year-old widower and father of four insisted he was not homosexual and claimed\u00a0 32-year-old Mr Hussain, a Muslim who also has a wife, had been a long-standing family friend as their fathers served together during the Second World War.<\/p>\n

The priest claimed his father, the late Harry Minchew, who was in the Royal Marines, met Muhmmad<\/span> Sadiq, now a retired Pakistani government official, when he was posted to India in 1940. But when<\/p>\n

The Mail on Sunday spoke to Mr Sadiq in Islamabad, he said he had never met Mr Minchew nor served in the army.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the civil partnership at his comfortable home in Croydon, South London, the priest said: \u2018It was the only way I could see of<\/span> getting him in the country.\u2019<\/p>\n

Under Home Office rules, immigrants in civil partnerships have to show they are in a genuine relationship before they are granted rights to stay in the UK.<\/p>\n

Yet Father Minchew said he and Mr Hussain had not seen each other for \u2018donkey\u2019s years\u2019.<\/p>\n

The priest initially told The Mail on Sunday he would resign, but after a meeting with senior Church leaders, he has now been \u2018withdrawn from public ministry\u2019 pending\u00a0 an investigation.<\/p>\n

Mr Hussain corroborated Father Minchew\u2019s version of events when we spoke to him outside Croydon furniture store Beds4U, of which he is a director. He said: \u2018He helped me. That\u2019s it. There is nothing more.\u2019<\/p>\n

Father Minchew could also face prosecution for assisting unlawful immigration.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Credit: Daily Mail<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A high-profile Catholic priest has been suspended after an investigation discovered he was in a sham \u2018gay marriage\u2019 to help a Pakistani immigrant stay in Britain. Father Donald Minchew \u2013 a former Anglican who converted to Catholicism after attacking the Church of England\u2019s loss\u00a0 of traditional values \u2013 admitted entering into a civil partnership as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":8065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-8059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}