The Rev. Canon Mpho A. Tutu and Prof. Marceline van Furth were married in a private ceremony on 30 Dec 2015 in Oegstgees in the Netherlands
The youngest daughter of former Cape Town archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Desmond Tutu, has announced that she was married last month in a civil ceremony in the Netherlands to another woman. The Rev. Canon Mpho A. Tutu, who serves as the Executive Director of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town reported she and.Marceline van Furth were married in a private ceremony on 30 Dec 2015 in Oegstgees. Dr. van Furth is a professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the Vrije University in Amsterdam, and holds the Desmond Tutu Chair in Medicine at the university. Educated at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Canon Tutu was ordained in 2004 for the Diocese of Western Massachusetts and is currently a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She co-authored Made for Goodness with her father, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the recently released “Tutu: The Authorized Portrait” , with journalist Alister Sparks. Canon Tutu had been married to Joseph Burris with whom she has two daughters, Nyaniso and Onalenna. Dr. van Furth and Canon Tutu stated they planned to celebrate their marriage a second time in Cape Town in May — South African civil law permits same-sex weddings. The Anglican Church of Southern Africa does not permit its clergy to enter into same-sex marriages. The diocese of Cape Town offices are closed over the New Year’s weekend, however, and the current Archbishop of Cape Town could not be reached for comment. The announcement of the marriage would be problematic for the leaders of the South African church, a source told Anglican Ink, as though Canon Tutu is not a member of the ACSA, the distinction between the Episcopal Church of the USA and the Anglican Church of South Africa would be lost on most readers, implying the local church had shifted its position on the question of same-sex marriage.
