AN ANGLICAN priest in Cornwall is among the many 25 contestants on the brand new series of The Traitors, which began on BBC One, on New Year’s Day.
In the show — billed as “the final word game of deception” and now on its third series — contestants gather at a Scottish castle, where the host, Claudia Winkleman, secretly selects a small variety of Traitors, after interviewing each of them. The rest are then designated as Faithfuls; the aim is to root out the Traitors before they “murder” everyone else. If the Traitors can pass themselves off as Faithfuls, they win a prize of as much as £120,000.
Among the contestants this yr is the Revd Lisa Coupland, who was ordained priest within the diocese of Truro at Petertide 2023. She served her title at Meneage and in Kerrier deanery, within the Lizard peninsula, and is now Pastoral Care Lead for the deanery.
Introducing herself in the primary episode, which was watched by 5.4 million viewers, she said: “My name is Lisa. I’m 62-years-old, and I actually think that any self-respecting murder mystery must have a priest in it.”
Her plan, nonetheless, is to maintain her ordained status a secret from the opposite contestants; so she is going to not wear a clerical collar.
Ms Coupland said: “My strategy in the sport is to mix in with everyone else, so I’m not actually going to openly declare that I’m an ordained priest.”
Removing her collar before others arrive, she said: “Off-duty now. God forgive me.”
Speaking to the host, Ms Coupland said that she had “had a chat” with God concerning the show. Asked “Can you lie?” she said: “Yes. I’m a priest, not a saint.”
After the primary episode aired, the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who’s Acting Bishop of Truro, posted “Go Lisa!” on X.
A handful of priests posted on X that they’d been approached to participate on the show, but had turned it down.
In a profile for the BBC, published before the primary episode, Ms Coupland said that she was “completely obsessed” with murder mysteries, and described herself as an “observer” and “good judge of character”. Referring to her strategy, she said: “I believe moving into, if I say I’m a priest, I believe I’m going to have a goal on my back immediately.”
She can be good at spotting liars, she said, because she had a “really good memory”.
Ms Coupland, 62, said in a profile for the diocese on the time of her ordination that, having been born at St John and St Elizabeth Hospital in London, delivered by nuns, “I suppose my calling was from birth.”
Raised within the Roman Catholic Church, she had desired to be a priest for the reason that age of six. “But being a Catholic girl that obviously wasn’t going to occur.”
She moved to Cornwall in 1985. Before her ordination, she worked in sales and marketing for global transnational drugs corporations. “Once you’ve worked for a pharmaceuticals firm, it is advisable atone to your sins,” she said.
Since childhood, she has had a “Franciscan and Celtic form of spirituality” and a terrific love of dogs, horses, and the natural world. “But through my early years and into my twenties, I felt a bit let down by my church,” she said.
It was not until the Nineties, when her children attended an Anglican school, that she joined the Church of England and was baptised in an Anglican church. In 2015, while in hospital after a significant operation, she began talking to the chaplains and praying with fellow patients.
“I’d heard the calling to be ordained since I used to be a baby, but it surely was only then that I heeded that decision,” she said. “I’d all the time felt I wasn’t good or clever enough. Every time I’d felt those nudges, I hadn’t recognised them for what they were.”
She said of her ministry: “I like all our congregations, but it surely’s really about being out locally, meeting on a regular basis individuals who don’t necessarily go to church but who still have a faith and need to discuss it.
“I’ve sometimes found the concept of being a priest overwhelming. I’m really looking forward to it but I’m also quite humbled by all the things that it represents.”
