After retirement he was made an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Ripon, where he became the first bishop in the Church of England to announce that he was gay, after disclosing his sexuality on television in 1995.[6] Rawcliffe later argued for the age of consent for homosexual relations to be reduced to 14,[7]
Rawcliffe died on 1 February 2011 at the age of 89.[8]
^Amongst other books he wrote The Meaning of it All is Love (2000), Seasons of the Spirit (2003), Pilgrimage to Melanesia (2005) and Gethsemane to Calvary (2006). British Library website accessed 18:05GMT 20 December 2010