St Paul's Cathedral on 22 March 1987, but he remained an outspoken critic of moves to ordain women to the priesthood within the Anglican Communion. In 1989, Leonard co-authored a book titled Let God be God with two Anglican theologians examining the issue of inclusive language in the church, giving particular attention to inclusive God language, of which they were especially critical: this God and Lord ... is revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Try as we may, we cannot see how we can accept God's self-revelation without also accepting that God has chosen to use certain male symbols and male language to express to us the kind of God 'he' is. To cease to use these terms is, to us, to discard that revelation." Ordination in the Roman Catholic Church After his retirement Leonard eventually left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic. On 23 April 1994 he was conditionally ordained as a priest (but not as a bishop) in the Roman Catholic Church. Although the Roman Catholic Church does not recognise the validity of Anglican ordinations, Leonard's ordination was conditional due to there being "prudent doubt" about his previous ordination in the Church of England, because at Leonard's own consecration in 1964 a bishop of an Old Catholic church of the Union of Utrecht (whose own ordination as a bishop was recognised as valid by the Roman Catholic Church) was among the bishops who consecrated him. This eased his reception into the Roman Catholic Church, although his claim that he was legitimately a bishop and his request for a personal prelature were rejected. Leonard stated that he was not first ordained a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church and that Pope John Paul II's personal instruction was that he should be ordained immediately to the priesthood sub conditione. He was later appointed a papal chaplain with the title Monsignor and then a prelate of honour by the Pope on 3 August 2000. Family Leonard was the brother-in-law to the academic Michael Swann (Lord Swann of Coln St Denys) and Hugh Swann, cabinet maker to Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, having married their sister, Priscilla Swann, in 1943. He and his wife had two sons. National Portrait Gallery Nine portraits of Leonard (1962 by Elliott & Fry and 1979 by Bassano and Vandyk) are owned by the National Portrait Gallery. References External links