Anglican priest, Dr. Marion Sutton, makes a point while standing on the lawns of the All Saints' Fellowship Church in Fellowship, Portland.
MEET REVEREND Dr. Marion Sutton - a diminutive, medium-sized woman with low cut hair. But, more importantly, she is the first female Anglican priest in Jamaica to ascend to the order of Rural Dean.
Only the posts of Diocesan Bishop, Suffragan Bishop and Archdeacon precede the post she occupies in the hierarchy of the local Anglican Church.
"I am the first woman who has been appointed Rural Dean in Jamaica," beamed the Portland native, who originally hails from Draper's district in the parish.
However, she hastened to highlight that she never aspired to attain the post but was asked by the bishop to stand in the gap. After much prayer she accepted.
However, the constitution of the Anglican Church in the province of the West Indies forbids all females, including Dr. Sutton, from ascending higher than the post of Archdeacon. A theological stance Dr. Sutton, 55, thinks is skewed. "Theologically, no. I don't see it." She explained: "They say theologically that none of the disciples were female. That is some argument that is put out, overlooking the fact that Mary was the person who was given the charge to take the message that Jesus was resurrected from the dead."
OUTSTANDING JOB
Dr. Sutton has been hailed by some for what they describe as "an outstanding job in revitalising and restarting churches" in the Portland area she oversees.
The woman is a true academic, as she possesses a train of scholastic accomplishments. She holds a Doctor of Education with specialisation in Curriculum Development and Teacher Supervision from Columbia University in the United States.
Check this, she has three master's degrees in the fields of Anthropology, Education from Columbia University and the third in Divinity from the Newman Theological College in Canada. She read for her first degree in African History and Culture at the University of California Irvine in the U.S.A. And, Dr. Sutton has done postdoctoral studies at Yale University in the U.S.A.
Dr. Sutton, who has lectured at a few universities abroad, left the academic world for what she deemed to be a higher calling to serve as a priest in the Anglican Church. The call came shortly after Dr. Sutton got married in 1995 to John Sutton, who by the way was her form master during her days at Titchfield High School. At the time of the call Dr. Sutton was residing in Edmonton, Canada with her husband.
She explained that she was not feeling well and visited her doctor, who after examining her concluded that that nothing was physically wrong. "I thought I was physically sick. I was feeling mentally and emotionally like there was something that I should do that I wasn't doing...," she recalled.
After discussing other aspects of her life, the doctor suggested that Dr. Sutton needed a physician of another kind and instructed her to dialogue with her priest. She did and the rest is history.
After going through the ropes and rituals Dr. Sutton was ordained a priest in January 2002. Afterwards she started feeling a tug on her heart to serve in Jamaica. After prayer and consultation with her elders, Dr. Sutton and her husband returned to Jamaica in September of the same year she was ordained.
Now, she oversees four churches in the Portland circuit which includes All Saints' Fellowship in Fellowship, St. Paul's in Moore Town, St. Luke's Mission in Comfort Castle and Chapel-of-Ease in Bourbon. In addition, Dr. Sutton is also the board chairman of the Coopers Hill Primary School in the parish.
Dr. Sutton is kept busy with her hectic church schedule that sees her performing two services every Sunday, the first at 9:30 a.m. and the other at 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Sutton is highly saluted for the work that she has done in restoring the churches in her circuit that were reduced to being archaic buildings, with memories of yesteryear, to bodies alive again with activity.
Still, the communities she serves remain in dire need of attention. Dr. Sutton has appealed for help on behalf of the people. She said the area suffers greatly from lack of industry, development and a lack of employment opportunities. She lamented that children are forced to drive in the trunks of cars because of the absence of a proper transport system. "It is terrible, deplorable that any human being should have to live in the conditions that exist here without any industry without any hope for employment in these Rio Grande Valleys," she said.
