I’ve been an Anglican since I was a baby, since I was baptised — though I came to the Church as a teenager. I was taught the faith by a series of Catholic-minded priests, and I haven’t changed my mind about anything. I still believe what I was taught 40 years ago.

I have spent most of my life working for the Church of England in one way or another. I worked for the Church of England Pensions Board, and then was Bursar of Chichester Theological College — which closed. I became director of Forward in Faith three weeks later.

I used to spend my day answering letters. Now it’s emails — constant, constant emails from all over the world. I try to advise, encourage, and support those who support us, and try to engage with those who don’t. The turnover of Forward in Faith is about £250,000 a year, and the membership is close on 10,000.

People think we want to stop women being consecrated as bishops. I don’t think we do, because when the Church of England decided to ordain women as priests in 1992 we thought it would logically have to consecrate women as bishops. If they didn’t, they would be a deeply sexist organisation. (There’s something faintly disturbing about a Church which behaves in such a sexist way.) All we’re looking for is an honoured place in the Church for those who cannot accept women’s ministry.

“An honoured place” is a place where we can grow, if God wills it — not a corner where we can die away into obscurity. We’ve got to be enabled to flourish, because if we can flourish — both sides of the argument — we can get back into mission and evangelism, the gospel imperatives, instead of arguing about this. Under the Act of Synod it seemed that we had this, but it now seems as if we might be losing it.

Am I sexist? I’d hotly deny that anyone thinks I’m a sexist — but then you’d have to ask my wife and daughter, and my friends. . . I hope they would say no; but then I say that with the trepidation of any man who answers that question.

If a lot of members leave, the Church of England would lose an enormous breadth. We have got such a broad Church, which has managed to embrace the most exotic papalists right through to some Evangelicals who owe more to Geneva than Rome. For a great slice to disappear out of the life of the Church would be just so sad. I think that would be a disaster.

Whether I will be able to stay remains to be seen. If I could no longer be an Anglican, I would almost certainly be a Roman Catholic — but I believe the Church of England will almost certainly come to an equitable solution to the problem. I found the recent Synod intensely depressing. People talked about inclusivity, but were actually going down a different line which would make it impossible for a lot of people to stay. The mood of Synod seems not to listen to the bishops who gave constructive solutions.

I don’t think a code of practice can mark out an honoured place. The experience of fellow Anglican Catholics round the Communion suggests it won’t work. Sooner or later, they will get ignored. I don’t want to live in the sort of Church where we have to seek “remedy in law” or judicial reviews because the Bishop of Barchester has done such-and-such. It all sounds so . . . temporary.

I hope new special dioceses will be made: that’s the best that could happen.

I hope I have women priests as friends, because when I worked at the theological college we trained women — back in those days as permanent deacons, of course — and some are priests now. And some of the men we trained have also embraced the ordination of women. I hope we’re still friends, whilst I may not experience their ministry. I’m a friendly sort of person — I really am.

As an Anglo-Catholic, I cannot receive the ministry of women priests: I have doubts about their priesthood; I have doubts about sacraments they celebrate; and, as a Catholic Anglican, I can’t afford to have doubts about the sacraments. So on Sundays, I go to a Forward in Faith sort of church. The trouble is, boundaries have built up between what we’ve been calling “the two integrities” because of lack of trust. If we could get back to trust on both sides of the argument there are any number of ways non-sacramental ministry could be shared between these two integrities, but it’s not going to happen any day now. Still, if I went to a wedding or a funeral and there was a woman officiating, I’d be perfectly happy and relaxed about it.

My wife agrees with me. My kids are at that stage between university and real life where they aren’t really interested in the Church, although they are very supportive. They don’t necessarily understand what I’m talking about, but that’s because they don’t take enough interest. I’m confident they will find their way back to the Church some day. Who knows what they will think? It will be a different Church then, I hope.

All this must have affected my spiritual life — yes, of course — it’s a distraction.

What would be marvellous would be for me not to have to do this job, and no need for Forward in Faith. What a waste of effort and money and energy it has been, on both sides! If all the money which has been spent on this had been used for feeding the hungry, and helping the poor — just think of the difference we could have made.

If I wasn’t doing this job, I would think very seriously about taking a slightly early retirement. I’m old enough to do that.

No chance of a holiday this year — or only a short one — we’ll be moving house. But if I can take one, my favourite place is the South of France.

I’ve always liked crime fiction: the good guy always wins. The Famous Five of Enid Blyton is a sort of crime story, isn’t it? And then Bulldog Drummond was a childhood hero. Nowadays I think the late Michael Dibdin is a really fabulous writer, and his early death is a tragedy: there’ll be no more books.

The most important decision I made was to get married. I was 31. We met at work — a housing association in the East End of London.

When I was a child, I just hoped to be an adult. I was dying to grow up. I wanted to do adult things like driving cars and having lots of money. (I can drive.)

I regret never having learnt how to swim. I’ve tried occasionally, but have always been an abject failure; so I feel I’ve never quite got the fullest enjoyment out of the holidays in the South of France that everybody else does. Perhaps that could be a sort of retirement project?

I hope to be remembered for a sense of humour and the ability never to take anything too seriously.

Fr James Owen — now dead — my school chaplain and later priest of Little St Mary’s, Cambridge, was very influential to me. He taught me that it’s possible to laugh in church, and about church, and at the Church.

There’s an absolutely fabulous Fairtrade wine from Argentina, Finca Federada, which is only available by mail order from Laithwaites, a wine merchant in Reading.

I like all the Bible — and the bits I don’t like I don’t read. But the most important verses to me are Romans 8 — all of it, but particularly the last two verses. They first struck me as a child, hearing them read at a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols we had at prep school, where I think the headmaster had decided to substitute them for the usual John 1. I don’t know why.

What made me angry last was a speech in the July debate in Synod which caricatured what Forward in Faith members believe.

I’m happiest when I have my wife and children with me, and we sit at a table, and eat together. It doesn’t happen much these days, as my children have fled the nest; but my son is in London, where I live, and my daughter is moving to London; so perhaps it will happen more often.

I pray for the suffering, the homeless, the lonely, the hungry — and the dead. Those who have, one way or another, influenced me throughout my life. We constantly have to pray for the dead.

I’d like to get locked in a church with Rowan Williams so I could give him a break from all that he’s been going through. I would promise not to mention the words “women” or “priests”, let alone the word “sexuality”. In fact, I would promise not to say anything at all. He’s fabulous: a lovely man, and he deserves a break. I feel so sorry for him — that’s he’s being attacked from all sides — and I wish they would all stop it.

www.forwardinfaith.com