Kirk suspends minister as finances probed
Investigation into claims of irregularities at his church
A MINISTER has been suspended and police have launched an investigation into allegations of financial irregularities at his church in Inverclyde.
The Church of Scotland confirmed the suspension of Rev Douglas Cranston as it launched its own probe into the financial affairs of St Columba Church in the village of Kilmacolm.
Details of the decision to suspend Rev Cranston, the minister at the church, were given to the congregation on Sunday by the minister of sister church Kilmacolm Old Kirk, Dr Peter McEnhill, who is also clerk to the Presbytery of Greenock and Paisley.
A Church of Scotland spokesman said: “Rev Douglas Cranston has been placed under administrative suspension pending an internal investigation into the affairs of Kilmacolm St Columba. The congregation will be led by another minister acting as interim moderator until matters are resolved.”
Police confirmed that on June 25, Police Scotland received an allegation of financial irregularities at St Columba Church and that “inquiries are ongoing”.
A Police Scotland spokesman added: “No criminality has been established at this time.”
The suspension means that Rev Cranston, who is a former chairman and director of the Forward Together evangelical movement within the Church of Scotland, has to abstain from the exercise of all the functions of his office until the internal proceedings are disposed of. Church of Scotland disciplinary procedures state that such a suspension “shall not constitute a form of censure”.
The church’s latest set of accounts for 2013 show that they were £33,893 in the red. The accounts for 2014 are due by September 30.
Rev Cranston was at the centre of a row six years ago, when the Forward Together group were forced to apologise to a gay minister for a smear campaign mounted against him.
Forward Together admitted spreading misinformation about the homosexual minister and his estranged wife.
The group told its members that minister Scott Rennie had left his wife and daughter to move in with another man at the manse in Aberdeen. Rev Cranston admitted this was wrong.
The U-turn came after Mr Rennie, who was hoping to become the new minister at Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen, took exception to the comments and
The congregation will be led by another minister acting as interim moderator until matters are resolved
instructed his solicitors to act accordingly.
The evangelical group were opposed to Aberdeen-born Mr Rennie, 37, being appointed the new minister at the church in the city’s west end because he had openly admitted that he intended to live in the manse with his new partner, known only as David.
In communications to members Mr Cranston stated: “It is difficult to understand what would constitute an unacceptable lifestyle in terms of our ordination of vows if a man who leaves his wife and child and sets up home with another man as his partner is deemed acceptable in this ministry.”
However, the minister’s solici- tors informed the group’s chairman that Mr Rennie’s wife had left him and he did not meet his new male partner, a moral and religious education teacher at an Aberdeen school until two years later. The evangelical group was then forced to apologise.
Rev Cranston was unavailable for comment.