While remaining a parish priest, Wheatley became the Director of Post-Ordination Training in 1988 for the Edmonton area. Between 1988 and 1993, he was also Area Dean of North Camden and was a member of the General Synod from 1975 to 1995. He became Archdeacon of Hampstead in 1995.[3]
He announced his intention to retire at the end of 2014 to the London Diocesan Synod on 17 July 2014.[4] He retired from full-time ministry on 31 December 2014.
Wheatley retired to the south coast of England in 2014, but since that time has been licensed as an honorary assistant bishop in both the Diocese of Southwark and the Diocese of London.[5] Additionally, since 2014, he has served as episcopal patron of the chapter and companions of the Shrine of Our Lady of Willesden.[6] From 2019 to 2022, during an interregnum, he was priest-in-charge of Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea in the Diocese of Chichester.[7] Since the appointment of a new rector, he has continued to serve in the parish as an honorary assistant clergy.[8]
Doctrinal positions
Wheatley is opposed to the ordination of women as priests and bishops. In 2008 he was one of several hundred clergy who signed an open letter from Forward in Faith calling upon the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as co-chairmen of the Church of England's General Synod, to ensure that legal protections established in 1992 for those clergy who were conscientiously unable to accept the ordination of women be preserved. This was in response to a proposal in General Synod that the statutory legal protections concerned should be replaced with a merely advisory "Code of Practice".[9]
Personal life
In 2003, The Times reported that Wheatley was gay.[10] By 2003, he had been sharing his home with his partner for eight years. He has stated that he is "a celibate Christian living by Christian teachings".[11]
^Gledhill, Ruth (23 June 2003). "Evangelicals to meet Williams over gay bishop". The Times. Retrieved 30 June 2015. According to The Sunday Times yesterday, two clergymen known to be gay were appointed bishops without objection in the 1990s. One, the Bishop of Edmonton, the Right Rev Peter Wheatley, who has shared his home with his partner for eight years, told the News of the World that he was "a celibate Christian living by Christian teachings".