Thinking Anglicans

General Synod – convocations and laity meetings

The House of Laity and the two Convocations (the clergy and bishops) met separately this afternoon to debate the legislation to allow women to be bishops.

The votes below are for the main vote on the approval of the draft measure. There were also votes (all in favour) on the consequential draft amending canon.

The bishops of the Canterbury Convocation approved the legislation by 27 votes to nil. The Canterbury clergy voted 95 for and 19 against with one recorded abstention.

In the York Convocation the bishops voted 11 for and 2 against. The clergy voted 38 for and 11 against with 2 abstentions.

The House of Laity voted 123 for and 53 against with no recorded abstentions.

Since all votes were in favour the draft legislation can now go to the whole Synod for the debate on final approval on Monday.

Many members will have voted to approve the legislation not because they are in favour, but to allow it to be debated in full Synod on Monday.

The Church of England website has this press release Latest on women bishops legislation from General Synod 06 July 2012 which starts “Convocations and House of Laity approve draft legislation”.

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Women Bishops – Friday morning press reports

Madeleine Davies in the Church Times Bishops to meet amid fevered pre-Synod lobbying

Lizzy Davies in The Guardian Fears Church of England vote on women bishops has begun to unravel

Robert Pigott for the BBC Women bishops: Vote could change Church forever
The BBC also has Q&A: Women bishops vote and Church of England meeting ahead of women bishops vote.

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Equal civil marriage: some developments

Andrew Grice at the Independent reported yesterday Religious figures meet at conference to back plans to legalise civil gay marriage.

Religious figures who support gay marriage will today launch a fightback against church leaders who have come out against same-sex marriage.

Representatives from the Church of England, liberal Jews, the Quakers and the Unitarian and Free Church will join forces at Westminster to declare their backing for the Government’s plans to legalise civil gay marriage, which have provoked strong opposition from leaders of the Anglican and Catholic churches.

Some faiths want the Coalition to go further by giving churches the freedom to carry out religious same-sex marriage.

Those attending the conference will include Giles Fraser, a priest who resigned as Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral last autumn following the Occupy protests; Dr Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans; Paul Parker, Recording Clerk for the Quakers; Rabbi Roderick Young; Derek McAuley, chief officer of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches; and the Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement…

The BBC had Labour host meeting of faith groups backing gay marriage.

Today the Evening Standard reports: Nick Clegg: Gay couples should have the right to marry in church, and also expresses editorial support for this.

Gay couples could soon win the right to marry in churches in a historic step towards equality, Nick Clegg told the Evening Standard today.

In an exclusive interview before Saturday’s World Pride festival in London, the Deputy Prime Minister said he now believed religious organisations should be free to conduct same-sex weddings if they wish.

“This is a personal view at the moment, but I think that in exactly the same way that we shouldn’t force any church to conduct gay marriage, we shouldn’t stop any church that wants to conduct gay marriage,” said Mr Clegg…

And John Bingham at the Telegraph has Nick Clegg backs gay marriage in churches – in break with David Cameron pledge.

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Vivienne Faull to be next Dean of York

Number 10 announced today that Vivienne Faull, who is currently Dean of Leicester, is to be the next Dean of York

Dean of York

Thursday 5 July 2012

The Queen approves Vivienne Frances Faull as Dean of York.

The Queen has approved the nomination of the Very Reverend Vivienne Frances Faull, MA, Dean of Leicester, in Leicester Diocese, to be appointed to the Deanery of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, York, on the resignation of the Very Reverend Keith Brynmor Jones, MA, on 30 April 2012.

Notes for Editors

The Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, (aged 57) studied at the Queen’s School, Chester and Saint Hilda’s College, Oxford.

After teaching with the Church Mission Society in North India and youth work at Shrewsbury House, Everton, she trained for ministry at Saint John’s College, Nottingham and Nottingham University.

She served as a Deaconess at Saint Matthew and Saint James, Mossley Hill in the Diocese of Liverpool from 1982 to 1985, moving to become Chaplain, later Fellow, at Clare College, Cambridge.

She was made Deacon in the Diocese of Ely in 1987.

She began cathedral ministry in 1990 as Chaplain at Gloucester Cathedral where she married Michael, a Physician, and where she was ordained priest in 1994. In 1994 she moved to become Canon Pastor, and later Vice Provost, at Coventry Cathedral.

In 2000 she was appointed Provost of Leicester (the first women to lead a Church of England cathedral), becoming Dean of Leicester in 2002.

She has been a member of the General Synod representing Deans of cathedrals since 2004 and is currently on the panel of Chairs of Synod.

In 2009 she was elected Chairman of the Association of English Cathedrals (the cathedrals’ representative body) and is serving her second term on the English Anglican Roman Catholic committee for ecumenical conversations.

She is currently a governor of Leicester College, one of the largest and most diverse Further Education Colleges in the country, and a Trustee of Curve, Leicester’s new theatre. She has recently been elected Honorary Fellow of Clare College Cambridge.

York Minster has an expanded version of the Number 10 announcement: New Dean of York announced.

Women and the Church (WATCH) has welcomed the appointment with this press release.

Appointment Announced of the Very Revd Vivienne Faull as Dean of York Minster

If a woman can lead York Minster without legal barriers, a woman can lead a Diocese in the same way.

As the Very Revd Vivienne Faull is announced as the next Dean of York Minster, WATCH looks forward to her ministry with excitement and joy. For a woman to hold such a senior position in the Church of England is a great encouragement to all who have worked over decades for such a moment.

York Diocese has a number of parishes and clergy who will not accept the priestly ministry of women, so there will be work involved in continuing to welcome and affirm their faithful ministry at the Minster. But Rev Faull is no stranger to this: when she was appointed as Dean of Leicester Cathedral one of her close colleagues there did not accept the priestly ministry of women. They worked hard to honour each other’s ministry and different views and there is no reason to suppose that this will not also be the case in York.

As General Synod meets this weekend the good news of Rev Faull’s appointment gives clear evidence that women are being called by God to positions of leadership in the Church of England. Such women must be enabled to flourish in those roles, and this involves meeting the needs of those who will not accept their ministry with grace and respect, not with legal structures and barriers. We continue to ask the House of Bishops to withdraw their amendment to Clause 5.1.©.

And what do ordinary people think? See the WATCH Petition, signed by over 4500 people, at
https://www.change.org/petitions/the-house-of-bishops-of-the-church-of-england-withdraw-clause-5-1-c and read some of the comments to find out.

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Women Bishops – more news and comment

The Artsy Honker on her blog: A Provisional Note

Jeremy Fletcher on his blog: General Synod – What’s a chap to do?

Benny Hazlehurst on his blog: Trouble at the Top…

Richard Coles in The Independent: A typically Anglican compromise on women bishops

Avril Ormsby for Reuters: Church of England vote on women bishops could be derailed

Jerome Taylor in The Independent: Can the Church finally embrace women bishops?

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"Proper Provision" and women bishops

The group Proper Provision has written to members of General Synod urging them not to vote for an adjournment of the women bishops debate next Monday. The letter can be read on the Anglican Mainstream website, and is copied below.

Time to put this Measure to the test – from Proper Provision

Dear Member of General Synod,

We are writing to you on behalf of the thousands of loyal Anglican women who believe that men and women are inherently equal, and that our families and churches prosper when men take responsibility to provide godly oversight and headship. You may have heard about the petition we took to the House of Bishops asking them to amend the Measure.

We would urge you not to seek an adjournment for three reasons:

1) The House of Bishops have listened:

  • To the laity and clergy in the Dioceses, of whom 23% rejected the unamended Measure and 3% abstained.
  • To General Synod:
    • who in February voted to ask the House of Bishops to make amendments as long as they were insubstantial. The Group of Six has ruled that they are insubstantial.
    • and who historically have never given two-thirds majority support to an amendment or motion on this topic unless it specifically moved towards proper provision.

The House of Bishops have listened to the concerns of this substantial minority and simply sought in their amendments to clarify two points in order that it would make it easier for these people to give their consent to this innovation, the heart of which goes against their conscience.

2) The amendments have revealed how unwilling to compromise some proponents of women bishops can be.

WATCH have suggested that both sacramental assurance and headship are “non-gospel theologies” which “indirectly contribute to domestic and sexual abuse and violence against women”.

A Statement of our Concerns 11/06/12 p5

WATCH have also criticised the House of Bishops for attempting to “provide a permanent, guaranteed doctrinal space” for those who seek male clergy and bishops.

A Statement of our Concerns 11/06/12 p6

The suggestion that we are not fellow-Christians and that the women in our congregations are unsafe is personally hurtful. Doctrinally, it makes a mockery of the 1998 Lambeth statement, affirmed by General Synod in July 2006, which recognized that both those in favour of women bishops and those opposed were loyal Anglicans.

The House of Bishops deemed the amendments necessary to provide proper provision for all loyal Anglicans. The adjournment motion is simply an attempt to remove even that (inadequate) provision in favour of arrangements that are anticipated to be purely temporary and which will immediately be wholly insecure.

3) An adjournment will be expensive and may achieve very little.

In November 2010 it was estimated that a four-day Synod in London cost approximately £400,000 (including the lost revenue from Church House). While recognizing that our meeting may be shorter, we are not convinced that this would be money well spent.

If the Measure returns in its present form then nothing will have changed; we will have simply delayed the day when supporters of a female episcopate finally have to decide whether their priority is the Bishop’s attempt at church unity or their own particular understanding of equality.

If the Measure returns without the amendments then, unless it is defeated, we will have confirmed that there is no secure place in the Church of England for those who until now have been considered loyal orthodox Anglicans.

It has been the constant desire of the majority of General Synod both to consecrate women as bishops and to provide for those who seek male clergy and bishops. Let’s use the time we have in July to try and convince one another that this Measure could work and if we can’t do that, then so be it.

Surely the time has come to put this Measure to the test and move on.

Lorna Ashworth GS 287
Jane Bisson GS 428
Mary Durlacher GS 272
Sarah Finch GS 344
Susie Leafe GS 416
Andrea Minichiello Williams GS 293
Jane Patterson GS 403
Kathy Playle GS 275
Alison Ruoff GS 350
Ruth Whitworth GS 277
Alison Wynne GS257

The petition referred to at the beginning of the letter can be found at the end of this article on the Reform website: Media Statement: Proper Provision Petition 2012: 2,200 Anglican women say.

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House of Lords Reform Bill published

On 27 June, the Government published a House of Lords Reform Bill. A PDF copy is available at this link. As the CofE press release summarises it:

…proposes a House of Lords consisting of an 80% elected and 20% appointed membership, with 12 Lords Spiritual as supernumerary members. The elected members would serve for single non-renewable terms of 15 years, on a semi-open list system of election and represent regional areas along the same lines currently used for elections to the European Parliament. Appointed members would also serve for non-renewable 15 year terms and be chosen by an Appointments Commission.

The Bill makes provision for 12 Lords Spiritual to continue to serve in a fully reformed House, consisting of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester and seven other diocesan bishops of the Church of England. Under the terms of the Bill the process of selection of the seven is left to the Church of England. The number of bishops would be reduced from 26 to 12 across a 10-year transitional period beginning with the first elections to the House in 2015. Unlike other members of a reformed House the Lords Spiritual would be ex-officio and unsalaried.

The Government has accepted the suggestion of the Archbishops, endorsed by the Joint Committee, that the Lords Spiritual should be subject to the same tax and disciplinary measures as other members of a reformed House.

The Bishop of Leicester, Convenor of the Lords Spiritual, issued this statement:

“We on these benches recognise the need for some reform of this House and we welcome the opportunity that this Bill will give for thorough debate about the future of Parliament.”

“In particular we are pleased to see that the Government endorses the recommendation of the Joint Committee on the continuing contribution of the Lords Spiritual to a reformed House…”

Stating on behalf of the Bishops’ Benches that “we have always said that we will assess the proposals on the basis of what makes for the good governance of Britain” the Bishop raised two issues of concern in relation to the proposals in the Government’s Bill…

See the press release for the rest of his remarks.

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The BBC and the press on Women bishops

The BBC has covered the debate over women bishops in several ways today.

The Sunday programme on Radio 4 this morning included an interview with Lucy Winkett. You can listen to this here; it runs from 23 min 49 sec to 28 min 48 sec.

Also on Radio 4 Charlotte Smith presented a half-hour documentary: The Frock and the Church which can be listened to online.

And Charlotte Smith also wrote this: Anglican agonies over women bishops.

Emily Dugan writes in the Independent: Church set to reject ‘deal’ on female bishops.

Christian Today has: Orthodox Anglicans to vote against legislation on women bishops.

Jonathan Petre writes in the Mail Online: Historic vote on women bishops put in jeopardy as senior female clergy say concessions would make them second-class citizens.

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