SEVENOAKS, England, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- A Church of England vicar has angered women in his flock by telling them to "submit to their husbands."
The Rev. Angus MacLeay, a member of Reform, an Evangelical group seeking to reform the church, distributed a leaflet that compared the husband's role in the family to Christ's in the church, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday. His curate at St. Nicholas Church in Sevenoaks, Kent, then preached a sermon blaming changes in the position of women for the high divorce rate.
"Wives are to submit to their husbands in everything in recognition of the fact that husbands are head of the family as Christ is head of the church," MacLeay wrote. "This is the way God has ordered their relationships with each other and Christian marriage cannot function well without it."
Members of the parish say dozens of women have stopped making contributions to St. Nicholas.
"How can they talk that way in the 21st century?" one female parishioner asked. "No wonder the Church is losing touch if this is the kind of gobbledegook they want us to believe it."
MacLeay opposes the consecration of female bishops.
