Curate to Canon
Posted: 02 Nov 2006 @ 00:00
IT IS not often that a curate gets made an honorary canon of a cathedral
without having been in charge of a parish of his own. The Revd Ivelaw Bowman (
pictured, second from left) has been an OLM (ordained local minister)
since he was priested in 1998.
He has been doing “highly influential work”, says the Bishop of
Southwark, Dr Tom Butler.
A retired civil servant, Mr Bowman was born in Guyana, and confirmed an
Anglican at an early age, before coming to the UK in 1960. He was a Reader for
several years before he was encouraged to become ordained, and now he works
with the police in Lambeth as a member of Operation Trident, dedicated to
reducing gun crime. His work, says Lee Jasper, senior adviser to the Mayor of
London, has often been “unacknowledged, and sometimes dangerous”.
Mr Bowman learned all about racial discrimination during his early days in
London, in churches where his family was pointedly not welcomed; but he grew up
seeing his father doing work in the community, and always felt he should make
his own contribution. That has included escorting parents to identify their
murdered children. “The urban terrorists will not shock me or hard-working
members of our community into silence,” he says.
His Vicar, Canon Andrew Grant, tells me that Mr Bowman’s priestly ministry
is a big part of his life at St Andrew’s, Stockwell Green. There was a crowd in
Southwark Cathedral to see him installed.