More from the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department:
For nearly 30 years, [Ann Holmes] Redding has been an ordained minister in the Episcopal Church. Her priesthood ended Wednesday when she was defrocked.The reason? For the past three years Redding has been both a practicing Christian and a Muslim . . . . .
“The church interprets my being a Muslim as ‘abandoning the church,’ ” she said. “And that [there] comes an understanding that you have to be one or the other, and most people would say that. It simply hasn’t been my experience that I have to make a choice between the two.”
The Diocese of Rhode Island, where Redding was ordained, told her to leave either her new Muslim faith or the ministry. A diocese statement said Bishop Geralyn Wolf found Redding to be “a woman of utmost integrity. However, the Bishop believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim.”
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