Rev’d Canon Karen Rooms, Multi-Story: faith, inclusion, social justice
Revd Canon Karen Rooms is Canon Missioner at Leicester Cathedral, and the cis straight priest for the largely LGBT+ community of St Nicholas, Leicester. She is also the Women’s Ministry Enabler for the diocese.
She has lived and worked in Tanzania and was ordained in 2006 after umming and aahing about a vocation in politics or the church. In ministry she has always lived and worked in multi-cultural inner city parishes, starting in Hyson Green, Nottingham, where she worked with asylum seekers and refugees and became a founding trustee for a housing charity. Drawn into the work of Citizens UK to end child detention for immigration purposes, she subsequently co-founded the Nottingham Citizens broad based alliance working across different faith groups, education and labour for the common good in the city, having discovered a place where faith and politics meet.
As Canon Missioner she seeks to engage Cathedral visitors in issues of social justice and continues to work across faiths through broad based community organising, and as Chair of Trustee of Citizens UK.