The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced the formation of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG), as proposed in his Advent Letter. The WCG will address outstanding questions arising from the Windsor Report and the various formal responses from provinces and instruments of the Anglican Communion.
Details on the Anglican Communion News Service.
8 CommentsMost papers for next month’s General Synod are now online and are listed below. We will update the list as the remainder become available.
Updated 29 January to link to remaining papers
Agenda
Monday 11 February
Tuesday 12 February
Wednesday 13 February
Thursday 14 February
Special Agenda I (Legislative Business)
Papers for debate
The day set for debate is shown in brackets. Deemed business will only be debated if there is a request from members for this to happen.
GS 1598D Amending Canon No 27 (Tuesday)
GS 1599C Vacancy in See Committees Regulation 1993 (Tuesday)
GS 1637A Draft Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure (Tuesday)
GS 1638A Draft Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Regulations (Tuesday)
GS 1639A Draft Amending Canon No 29 (Tuesday)
GS 1637-9Y Report by the Revision Committee
GS Misc 874 Background Note to Illustrative Material
GS 1642A Draft Amending Canon No 28 (Wednesday)
GS 1642Y Report by the Revision Committee
GS 1672 Draft Ecclesiastical Fees (Amendment) Measure (Wednesday)
GS 1672X Explanatory Memorandum
GS Misc 877 Four Funerals and a Wedding
GS 1673 Growing Together in Unity and Mission (Thursday)
GS 1675 Report by the Business Committee (Monday)
GS 1677 Forty-Second Report of the Standing Orders Committee (deemed business)
First Notice Paper
GS 1678 Mental Health Issues (Wednesday)
GS 1679 Anglican Communion Covenant (Wednesday)
Annex 1 and Annex 2
GS 1680 Crown Appointments (Thursday)
Annex
GS 1681 Detention without Charge (Thursday)
GS 1682 Draft Church of England Pensions (Amendment) Measure (Tuesday)
GS 1682X Explanatory Memorandum
GS 1683 Draft Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure (deemed business)
GS 1683X Explanatory Memorandum
GS 1684 Code of Practice under Part V of the Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure 2007 (Tuesday)
GS Misc 875A and GS Misc 875B Casinos (private member’s motion – Tuesday)
GS Misc 876A and GS Misc 876B Eucharistic Prayer for Children (Diocesan Synod motion – Wednesday)
GS Misc 878A and GS Misc 878B Bible Availability (private member’s motion – Thursday)
Other papers circulated to members of the General Synod
GS Misc 873 Review of Extended Communion: Analysis of Diocesan Responses
GS Misc 881 Zimbabwe
The Church of England General Synod will meet in London from Monday 11 February to Thursday 14 February. The official press release is here and starts:
Major debates on detention without charge, mental health issues and casinos will be on the agenda of the General Synod when it meets at Church House, Westminster, from Monday, February 11, to Thursday, February 14, 2008. There is a large programme of legislative business, the most substantial item being the Revision Stage of the Clergy Terms of Service legislation. Synod will have further opportunity to debate the Anglican Communion Covenant and Senior Church (Crown) Appointments, following earlier debates in July 2007, and there will also be a focus on Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue.
We will be linking to the full agenda and online papers as these become available. There is an outline agenda which you can download here or read online here.
4 CommentsThe Church of England has published the office and working costs of its bishops for 2006. Here is the press release.
The 2006 office and working costs of bishops in the Church of England are published today. Figures for individual bishops were first published, for the year 2000, in December 2001. Bishops’ office and working costs were previously published as a total figure.
In 2006, the Church Commissioners funded the ministry of Church of England bishops by some £15.9 million, figures from the House of Bishops show. Of that sum, £4.6m related to stipends, National Insurance and pension contributions for the 44 diocesan and 69 suffragan/full-time assistant bishops. The remaining £11.3m related to bishops’ office and working costs, most of which pays for the salaries and pensions of office staff, as set out in this report.
Copies of Bishops’ office and working costs for the year ended 31 December 2006 are available from Bishoprics and Cathedrals Dept, The Church Commissioners, Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3AZ, tel 020 7898 1058.
The booklet includes a full description of the important role played by bishops locally, regionally and nationally.
The booklet for 2006, and for previous years back to 2000, can be downloaded from here.
16 CommentsThe Archbishop of York writes in the Observer I ripped up my dog collar to help topple this brutal tyrant.
Mark Vernon at Comment is free asks “Is philosophy just tinkering around the edges of science, or can a meeting of the disciplines give us deeper insghts into the universe?” in God and the multiverse.
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed argues in the Guardian’s Face to faith column that Spiritual journeys like the hajj must challenge body and soul.
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes on Judging when you must fight a war
Also in the Telegraph Sarah Todd hears how one Christmas congregation found room at the inn in Fathers, sons and holy spirits.
Joanna Moorhead in the Times writes that in deepest Surrey, families are flocking to watch a cast of real people in a most extraordinary nativity play O little town of Wintershall.
Also in the Times Ruth Gledhill writes about a study that argues Plagues of Egypt ‘caused by nature, not God’.
In the Church Times Giles Fraser writes about US suburbs: the home of segregation.
12 CommentsToday’s Guardian has an article by Stephen Bates Williams condemns breakaway bishops in gay rights row. That is an edited version and Stephen has kindly sent us his original full article which follows below.
Archbishop slams the splitters
Stephen BatesDr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the worldwide Anglican communion, yesterday condemned attempts by conservative church leaders to undermine the US Episcopal Church for its support for gay rights and effectively refused calls to disinvite American bishops from next year’s Lambeth Conference of all the church’s bishops.
In a long-anticipated Advent message to the 38 primates of the communion at which the archbishop had promised to respond to the crisis, Dr Williams criticised African and other church leaders who have consecrated their own American bishops and offered to look after the small number of dioceses whose conservative American bishops have said they wish to separate from the US church and seek oversight from foreign provinces. The first American diocese, San Joaquin in California, formally announced its secession at its synod last weekend and its intention to align itself to the tiny Anglican archdiocese of the Southern Cone, which covers most of South America.
In words which directly rebuke conservatives who claim theirs is the true and only voice of authentic Anglican identity, Dr Williams stated: “Not everyone carrying the name of Anglican can claim to speak authentically for the identity we share as a global fellowship….A great deal of the language that is around in the communion at present seems to presuppose that any change from our current deadlock is impossible, that division is unavoidable and that such division represents so radical a difference in fundamental faith that no recognition and future co-operation can be imagined. I cannot accept these assumptions and I do not believe as Christians we should see them as beyond challenge.”
In a passage which will be particularly galling to conservative evangelicals, especially those who regard the archbishop as Biblically unsound, Dr Williams cited St Paul, the sole author in the New Testament to explicitly condemn homosexuality and so regarded as a definitive spokesman for orthodoxy, saying: “The gospels and the epistles of Paul alike warn us against a hasty final judgement on the spiritual state of our neighbours….The challenge is not best addressed by a series of ad-hoc arrangements with individual provinces elsewhere…this is not doing anything to advance or assist local solutions that will have some theological and canonical solidity.”
Dr Williams’s lengthy and detailed statement, which went through numerous revisions by his staff at Lambeth Palace, is likely to infuriate conservative Anglican pressure groups who have been demanding that the church should discipline or expel the Americans for electing the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. The archbishop met all the US bishops in New Orleans in September when they formulated a statement agreeing not to endorse any further gay bishops or to authorise formal blessings services for same sex couples.
His silence since that meeting has created a vacuum which has exasperated both liberals and conservatives anxious for him to give a lead. The statement now directly contradicts the assertion of the Most. Rev. Gregory Venables, the English Evangelical presiding bishop of the Southern Cone, who has made no secret of wishing to recruit disaffected American dioceses and who let it be known, following a meeting in London with Dr Williams in September that he believed the Archbishop thought the plan was “a sensible way forward”.
Lambeth Palace did not publicly criticise Bishop Venables until this week. One senior insider at the Palace told the Guardian that the idea that Dr Williams supported the move was complete nonsense.There are signs of divisions between senior members of the archbishop’s staff and frustration over his perceived dithering.
As the message makes clear that Bishop Robinson will not be invited to next year’s conference either, the official said it contained “something to annoy everyone.”
Dr Williams put forward two proposals to keep the American Church inside the Anglican communion: “professionally facilitated conversations” between US leaders and their American and outside critics to see if they can achieve better mutual understanding, reduce tensions and clarify options and the setting up of a group of primates to produce proposals to put to next year’s Lambeth Conference on the issues that the gay crisis has thrown up. Neither last night seemed likely to satisfy the church’s conservatives who have maintained for several years that the time for listening is past.
end
Other press reports
Ruth Gledhill in The Times Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warns American church leaders to curb their pro-gay agenda
Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph Williams warns bishops in gay rights row
The Archbishop of Canterbury has released an Advent Letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion & Moderators of the United Churches.
It starts:
123 CommentsGreetings in the name of the One ‘who is and was and is to come, the Almighty’, as we prepare in this Advent season to celebrate once more his first coming and pray for the grace to greet him when he comes in glory. You will by now, I hope, have received my earlier letter summarising the responses from Primates to the Joint Standing Committee’s analysis of the New Orleans statement from the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church. In that letter, I promised to write with some further reflections and proposals, and this is the purpose of the present communication…
The Archbishop of Canterbury has released a Christmas Message to the Anglican Communion.
The Christmas Message is also available for the first time as a podcast.
One of the strangest yet most moving expressions in the New Testament is a verse in the Letter to the Hebrews (11.16): God ‘is not ashamed to be called their God’. The writer is talking about the history of God’s people. When they have been faithful to God, faithful in keeping on moving onwards in faith rather than settling down in self-satisfaction, when they are true pilgrims, then God is content to be known as their God…
Full text below the fold.
17 CommentsUpdated
Three teenagers from Oi! magazine recently interviewed the Archbishop of Canterbury at home in Canterbury and the text is online: Tea and Toast with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Update: This is now available on the Archbishop’s own website here.
A pdf file of the interview as it will appear in the print version of Oi! can be downloaded from here.
If the comments we receive are anything to go by TA readers may be most interested in what the Archbishop said about gay clergy but do read all of the interview.
Ruth Gledhill reproduces most of the interview in today’s Times: Family and God keep me going – even if they all think I’m an idiot.
66 CommentsThe Anglican Communion News Service reports today as follows.
House of Bishops Meeting in New Orleans
The Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates of the Anglican Communion have now submitted their Report on The Episcopal Church House of Bishops of Meeting in New Orleans. The Archbishop of Canterbury has sent the Report to all the Primates and to all members of the Anglican Consultative Council and asked them to consult in their Provinces on the Report, and respond to him by the end of October.
A PDF of the Report can be found here. It’s quite long (19 pages).
122 CommentsThe BBC Radio Ulster programme Sunday Sequence carried an interview with Dr Eeva John this last weekend. The programme ended with a statement from the principal of Wycliffe Hall (Dr Richard Turnbull) and the chair of the hall council (the Bishop of Liverpool).
Listen (11m 39s)
We linked to an earlier interview with Dr John on BBC Radio 4 here.
Update
Clare MacInnes, a member of the hall council, has resigned “because of her concerns over failures by the body to ‘respond to allegations of bullying, intimidation of Council members and a lack of transparency in its decision making’.”
Details here.
[hat-tip to badman]
The Most Revd Dr Idris Jones, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway spoke at an Inclusive Church seminar in Manchester Cathedral on 29 September. His subject was Communion and Canterbury. Here is a brief extract.
Actually I can suggest the wording of a Covenant like this – “As sisters and brothers in Christ we pledge ourselves to remain together in spite of any differences that arise.” We really do not need anything more structured in order to facilitate what began and remains in essence a relational experience.
The Most Revd Alan Harper, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland has issued a statement in response to the 25 September 2007 Statement of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church. He concludes:
79 CommentsI hope that member churches of the Anglican Communion will now calmly and fairly reflect upon the New Orleans Statement and conclude that TEC Bishops have gone a considerable way to meeting the reasonable demands of their critics.
Updated Friday
William Atwood and William Murdoch were today ordained bishops by Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi (and, one assumes, at least two other bishops).
Ruth Gledhill in The Times US priests become Kenyan bishops in gay protest
BBC US Anglicans join Kenyan Church
Reuters Kenya consecrates conservative U.S. clerics as bishops
The New York Times reprints the Reuters article but with different pictures.
USA Today also reprints the Reuters article with another selction of pcitures.
Update
Global South Anglican has this picture of the consecration with many of the participating archbishops and bishops identified.
The Living Church Foundation in Bishops Atwood, Murdoch Consecrated in Kenya names several of those present.
The following has appeared on the Church of England website.
The Church of England is currently offering a trial General Synod podcast.
This provides MP3 files available to download to your MP3 player or listen to on your computer in addition to the General Synod July 2007 sound files currently available here.
The feed address for the General Synod podcast is:
http://cofe.anglican.org/synod-podcast.xmlFiles currently available as podcasts include the Debate of the Anglican Covenant Proposal, 7 July, and the Archbishop of York’s Presidential Address, 9 July.
How do I subscribe to a podcast?
You will need an internet connection, and a piece of podcast software or an RSS feed reader. This software can check for new episodes and automatically deliver them to your computer.
How you subscribe will vary depending on the software you use. To subscribe the first thing you need to do is add the ‘feed’ of the podcast to your software (or online reader). The feed is where the software will go to each time it wants to check for new content.
podcastingcastingnews.com provides a list of podcast software.
Further information about receiving RSS feeds is available at www.cofe.anglican.org/rssdetails.html.
As well as the two files mentioned above, the address by Archbishop Drexel Gomez is also available. The files are large (27 MB in one case) but they have the advantage that you can download them to your computer for later listening, unlike the streaming audio files that are also available.
0 CommentsThe Global South Steering Committee has issued a statement – This is a critical time – following a meeting held in London 16-18 July 2007. The membership of the steering committee is here.
Episcopal Life Online has responded with Global South Primates vow to continue violating Episcopal Church boundaries.
The Living Church Foundation has Global South Leaders Urge Emergency Primates’ Meeting.
The full judgment of the employment tribunal in the case of John Reaney v the Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance has been placed online by the Diocese of Hereford. It’s a 1.2 MB pdf file made up from scans of a fax so it’s not of the highest quality, but it is legible.
Update an html copy of this can at present be found here. (This URL will likely be replaced in the next day or so.)
An amended html copy is now available here. (Many thanks to pluralist for scanning the original PDF.)
25 CommentsThe questions asked at Synod this month are now online. Also available are the answers to the questions that were not reached during the synod session. The answers that were given orally will be put on line later as part of the transcript of the synod debates.
One question was about the theological colleges and courses attended by senior clergy. The details are here as a rtf file, but readers may find this html version more convenient.
8 CommentsThe Archbishop of York said farewell to the bishops of Worcester and Coventry, who are retiring, the bishop of Sodor and Man, who is to become the Dean of St Paul’s, and Michael Chamberlain, who is retiring as chair of the Finance Committee of the Archbishops’ Council.
The morning’s main business was the Archbishops’ Council’s draft budget for 2008 (GS 1665). Synod agreed the gross expenditure figures in the table below. There are some small sources of income, but the net expenditure, shown in the last column, is provided by the dioceses. The apportionments on individual dioceses are shown in GS 1665.
| Vote | Gross Expenditure (£) |
Net Expenditure (£) |
| 1 Training for Ministry | 10,947,200 | 10,647,200 |
| 2 National Church Responsibilities | 10,060,328 | 10,060,328 |
| 3 Grants and Provisions | 1,596,200 | 1,596,200 |
| 4 Inter-diocesan Support/ Mission Agencies Clergy Pension Contributions |
800,000 | 791,000 |
| 5 Church’s Housing Assistance for the Retired Ministry |
2,960,000 | 2,813,000 |
| TOTALS | 26,363,728 | 25,907,728 |
Finally Synod gave final approval to the Church of England Marriage Measure. The voting figures were:
| Ayes | Noes | |
| Bishops | 26 | 0 |
| Clergy | 106 | 3 |
| Laity | 123 | 3 |
The measure requires parliamentary approval before it can come into effect.
Official report of Tuesday here.
0 CommentsThe afternoon session started with a presentation by Sir Joseph Pilling (chair of the Senior Church Appointments Review Group) about the group’s report Talent and Calling (GS 1650).
As we have already reported the proposed consideration of the report was overtaken by the Government’s green paper The Governance of Britain (online here and here) proposing that the Prime Minister should no longer play an active role in the selection of diocesan bishops. As a result the debate and motion were extended to include this.
The Bishop of Leicester moved
That this Synod, noting that proposals in the Government’s Green Paper of 3 July (attached to GS 1650A) will necessitate further discussion with the Church:
(a) welcome the prospect of the Church achieving the ‘decisive voice in the appointment of bishops’ for which Synod voted in 1974;
(b) affirm its willingness for the Church to have the decisive voice in the selection of cathedral deans and canons appointed by the Crown, given the Prime Minister’s wish no longer to play an active role in the selection of individual candidates;
(c) invite the Archbishops, in consultation with the Archbishops’ Council and the House of Bishops, to oversee the necessary consequential discussions with the Government and to report to the February group of sessions, including on the implications for those matters covered by chapter 8 of GS 1650; and
(d) endorse the recommendations in chapter 10 of GS 1650, with the exception of recommendations 20-30, invite those responsible to give effect to them and invite the Archbishops’ Council to report to Synod during 2008 on progress with implementation.
Several amendments to the motion were proposed, two of which were carried, so that the final wording of the motion became
That this Synod, noting that proposals in the Government’s Green Paper of 3 July (attached to GS 1650A) will necessitate further discussion with the Church:
(a) welcome the prospect of the Church achieving the ‘decisive voice in the appointment of bishops’ for which Synod voted in 1974;
(b) affirm its willingness for the Church to have the decisive voice in the selection of cathedral deans and canons appointed by the Crown, given the Prime Minister’s “commitment to a process of constructive engagement between the Government and the Church” (The Governance of Britain Green Paper, CM7170);
(c) invite the Archbishops, in consultation with the Archbishops’ Council and the House of Bishops, to oversee the necessary consequential discussions with the Government and to report to the February group of sessions, including on the implications for those matters covered by chapter 8 of GS 1650; and
(d) subject to the above, endorse the recommendations in chapter 10 of GS 1650, invite those responsible to give effect to them and invite the Archbishops’ Council to report to Synod during 2008 on progress with implementation.
At the end of the debate the amended motion was carried by 297 votes to one.
8 CommentsMonday morning started with the Archbishop of York’s presidential address on the theme “Do Not be Afraid” – online here and here.
The First and Third Church Estates Commissioners (Andreas Whittam Smith and Timothy Walker) made a presentation on the commissioners’ report for 2006.
Diocesan Synod motion on the Church Commissioners
Mr Adrian Greenwood moved on behalf of the Southwark Diocesan Synod.
That this Synod request an urgent review by the Archbishops’ Council of the status and accountability of the Church Commissioners.
Mrs April Alexander (Southwark) moved as an amendment.
Delete all words after “That this Synod” and insert
“request:
(a) the Archbishops’ Council to prepare an independent report to the Synod on the Church Commissioners’ own proposal that there should be a General Synod Select Committee on the Parliamentary model to facilitate their further accountability to the Synod, having due regard to:
i. representation of the House of Laity on the Select Committee; and
ii. the interest of the Synod in the major investment and disinvestment decisions of the Assets Committee;(b) the Ethical Investment Advisory Group to prepare a report to the Synod on the feasibility of advising the Church Commissioners on the ethical implications of their major decisions in the purchase, sale and management of land and real estate and on the EIAG’s recommendations for making this advice effective, acceptable and within the spirit of the Commissioners’ own policy statements; and
(c) both to report back by July 2008”.
Even though Mr Greenwood supported this amendment it was defeated by 110 votes to 93. The unamended motion was then put to the vote and clearly defeated on a show of hands.
Background papers from the diocese of Southwark and the Church Commissioners.
Disability issues for ministry in the Church of England
The Revd John Naudé made a presentation on disability issues for ministry in the Church of England.
Background paper GS 1663.
The Bishop of Sheffield moved:
That this Synod affirm the value of the contribution made by disabled clergy in the life and witness of the Church of England and its commitment to and support for their ministry by asking dioceses to:
(a) take note of the report Disabled clergy in the Church of England and the outcome of this debate;
(b) ensure that a “lead” person on disability issues is appointed in each diocese and that appropriate training is made available; and
(c) ensure that disability issues are made an integral part of the functioning of diocesan structures.
The Revd Stephen Lynas (Bath & Wells) moved two amendments:
Leave out the words “disabled clergy” and insert “clergy with disabilities”.
At the end of paragraph (c) insert “, particularly Diocesan Advisory Committees and Parsonage Boards”.
Both amendments were carried so that the substantive motion became:
That this Synod affirm the value of the contribution made by clergy with disabilities in the life and witness of the Church of England and its commitment to and support for their ministry by asking dioceses to:
(a) take note of the report Disabled clergy in the Church of England and the outcome of this debate;
(b) ensure that a “lead” person on disability issues is appointed in each diocese and that appropriate training is made available; and
(c) ensure that disability issues are made an integral part of the functioning of diocesan structures, particularly Diocesan Advisory Committees and Parsonage Boards.
The amended motion was overwhelmingly carried.
1 Comment