| THE college manager of Buwere Divinity College, Uganda, has been charged with impersonation, after clerics in England received begging letters on behalf of two women students.
An investigation followed complaints made by Canon Christopher Hall, secretary of the Li Tim-Oi Foundation, which helps Christian women in the Global South, in memory of the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion.
Begging letters received included one to a woman priest who had already died, leaving a considerable part of her estate to the Foundation, said Canon Hall.
He believed that a scam had been running for almost a year. Alerts went out from Canon Tony Dickinson to all area deans in the diocese of Oxford, where the Li Tim-Oi Foundation is based.
The Foundation received several generous cheques as a result of the publicity, enabling it to make grants to the two students whose names were being used, after authentic applications from their diocesan bishops had been received — something Canon Hall described on Tuesday as a “silver lining”.
He said, however: “What bothers me, as with callers to the vicarage, is that the bogus queer the pitch for the genuine. Our area dean was very strict with me, and asked how we know our own procedures are watertight.
“We hope that people who are inclined to help will come through us, because we now have procedures that will make it work properly.”
A quick trawl through the database of the 32 Ugandan colleges and universities listed as part of the Anglican Communion has sparse information about most of the institutions.
Only eight heads are named, and only six telephone numbers and addresses are listed. The database is being compiled by Theological Education in the Anglican Communion (TEAC), with the aid of a grant fromTrinity, Wall Street, in New York.
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