Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s daughter Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu-Van Furth has decided to quit her job after her licence to preach was revoked.
Mpho told City Press she may no longer officiate in church because she married a woman.
Newlyweds Mpho and Marceline Tutu-Van Furth are on honeymoon in Bali after their wedding at a Franschhoek wine estate attended by Mpho’s parents, Leah and Desmond Tutu.
Mpho told the newspaper she had decided to “give up” her ministerial duties – her authority to preside at Holy Communion, and to officiate at weddings, baptisms and funerals in South Africa.
“Because the South African Anglican Church does not recognise our marriage, I can no longer exercise my priestly ministry in South Africa,” she said.
She added that Bishop Raphael Hess of the Diocese of Saldanha Bay was instructed to revoke her licence.
“I decided that I would give it to him rather than have him take it, a slightly more dignified option with the same effect,” Mpho was quoted as saying.
While same-sex marriage was legalised in South Africa in 2006, the South African Anglican law on marriage states: “Holy matrimony is the lifelong and exclusive union between one man and one woman