The retiring Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Owen Dowling, was married yesterday to Gloria Goodwin at St Paul’s, Manuka.
It was, and it was not, St Paul’s day.
It is St Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians that is cited by those opposing the ordination of women.
The Reverend Vicky Cullen, ordained by Bishop Dowling last month, celebrated the Eurcharist at the service. She was the first woman to do so in St Paul’s. She said it was a privilege and joyous occasion.
The marriage was celebrated by the Reverend Keith McCollim who took St Paul’s letter to the Colossians as the starting point for his address.
And the same letter by St Paul was chosen as the reading.
St Paul’s was packed with nearly 300 people who listened to the celebrants and the couple’s children, Natalie and Gavin Oliver and Matthew and Mary Dowling, lead prayers and the readings.
The couple would not say where they will spend their honeymoon, though “”it will be somewhere quiet,” according to the bride.
Bishop Dowling has had a difficult year in his struggle for the ordination of women. An ordination service planned at the beginning of the year was blocked by the courts. Later the General Synod cleared the way for their ordination and the first women to be ordained in Canberra-Goulburn were admitted to the priesthood by him last month.
Yesterday was the first full day of Bishop Dowling’s retirement. He said after the service, “”We can spend a whole new life together; it’s wonderful.”
The Dowlings will not live in Canberra, though he has been bishop nine years and 27 years in the ministry in the diocese.
Bishop Dowling went on extensive sick leave earlier in the year after charges laid by Victorian police over an alleged incident in Bendigo. These were dropped by the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions who said they were trivial and victimless and not in the public interest given the probable effect on the bishop’s health.
In his address at the service, the Reverend McCollim quoted St Paul: “”Love does not gloss over the past.”
He said there were three dimensions of love to be considered: the past, the present and the future.
“”Any love that cannot face all three does not merit our consideration today, or for that matter any day,” he said. “”In any marriage, let alone a remarriage, love encounters those darker times of bygone events where failure, selfishness or weakness may well have been experienced. St Paul reminds us that “love keeps no score of wrongs. does not gloat over others’ sins.”
On present love he said the “”now generation” had resulted in too high expectations of marraige that could almost ensure disappointment and disillusionment. But “”true love will neither founder on the rocks of past failure, nor invest all it’s capital in the present experience. There is always more to come”.
He said “”Gloria and Owen now find themselves at a new beginning.”
After the service, Owen Dowling stepped out into the blinding sunshine with his bride for photographs and greet well-wishers on the lawns outside St Paul’s.