Prince Charles honors Harry Williams

LONDON, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Britain's Prince Charles has praised the ministry of Harry Williams, the homosexual dean of Cambridge University who died earlier this year at 86.

The prince is endorsing Williams in a forward to a new book of essays penned by the late theologian, the Telegraph reported.

Prince Charles' admiration for Williams may be alarming to conservative bishops who have expressed growing concern for gay clergy, the newspaper said.

In his 1982 autobiography, "Some Day I'll Find You," Williams shocked many in the church by exposing his life as a promiscuous gay man during his days at Cambridge University.

"I slept with several men, in each case fairly regularly," Williams wrote. "They were all of them friends. Cynics, of course, will smile, but I have seldom felt more like thanking God then when having sex. In bed I used to praise Him there and then for the joy I was receiving and giving."

Prince Charles, in his new forward, speaks of Williams as "a man of intense humanity and warmth."