Tales from a Mad Vicar

No, not the one in the image. These words, a response to a previous post on the church and mental health, come from someone else:

"I am an unemployed Church of England priest. I am unemployed because 12 years ago I went through a couple of years suffering from a serious depressive illness. I was in and out of hospital and nothing the psychiatrists prescribed would shift it. Eventually I met a young occupational therapist and something clicked. Together we came up with a regime that pulled me out of the hell I was living in.

About ten years ago I was well enough to start working again. At the time I was the vicar of a two church parish, although I had been off work for over a year. I suggested to my archdeacon that I could manage one parish for a while until I was strong enough to cope with both. I was told this would not be possible. Then I was called into the bishop's office and he told me that I should retire and there was no job for me in the Church. I fought hard and he eventually gave me the post of assistant curate on a two year contract. He also insisted that I saw counsellors who reported back to him and undergo review procedures far more intrusive than what other priests had to go through.

At the end of the two years I had to fight again to keep my job. Again I was given a two year contract. At the end of that, after another fight, I was given a one year contract and at the end of that I was told there was no job for me, and I wasn't given any contract. However, I carried on working and they still paid me for another two years. Last September, the bishop finally got his way and I was dismissed.

During all those years of temporary contracts I did a perfectly fine and appreciated job and did not have a single minute off work because of illness, let alone mental distress. I have managed my depression by sticking to the regimes that were formulated with my OT and with medication.

During all those years the bishop never once considered putting me forward for a full time post. I am certain that he was convinced from the start that somebody who had suffered from mental illness could never be trusted to take on any position of responsibility. I also think he believes that all mental illness is the same and that we are all schizophrenics. He certainly does not understand that major depressive episodes are usually temporary and that even those who suffer from occasional relapses can be perfectly capable of holding down a job as well as anybody else between episodes. Basically my bishop was an ill-informed bigot.

Of course, having been subject to such prejudice for so long and held back from pursuing my vocation, all the parishes I apply to for work are suspicious of me. After 75 rejections in less than a year I gave up. This would never have happened if I had been in secular employment because my employer would have been breaking English law if he treated me in the same way as my former bishop. My bishop used the church's exemption from employment laws to get away with worse than murder - stripping me of my vocation and my reason for living.

The Church occasionally makes the right noises about mental illness but they are, in reality, a bunch of hypocrites."

'Mad Vicar'

A very sad and sobering tale, especially as one of the accusations about the Church used to be that we were 'the only army to shoot its wounded', an accusation I thought (hoped) we'd grown out of.

Please pray for this minister and the many others in the same boat.

Pax