Update Saturday 17 June
The rtf file of the outline agenda linked below has been replaced by this html version.
——
The outline agenda for the July 2006 group of sessions of the General Synod is now online here and is copied below.
There is also a draft forecast of business for 2007 here.
July 2006 Agenda
Times of sessions (unless otherwise stated): 9.30 am – 1 pm, 2.30 pm – 6.15 pm, 8.30 pm – 10 pm
Friday, 7 July
4 pm
Prayers, introductions, welcomes, progress of Measures, presentation of officers (Deputy Prolocutors and Pro-Prolocutors)
Business Committee report
Further Education
8.30 pm
Questions
Saturday, 8 July
9.30 am
Prayers
Presidential Address (by the Archbishop of York)
Appointments to the Archbishops’ Council
Legislative Business: Church Accounting Regulations 2006
Women Bishops: theological principle
2.30 pm
Legislative Business: Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure: Revision Stage
8.30 pm
Legislative Business: Church of England Marriage Measure: First Consideration
Sunday, 9 July
2.30 pm
Pensions: presentation, followed by questions
Budget
Church Commissioners’ Annual Report
Southwark Diocesan Synod Motion: Carbon Dioxide Emissions
8.30 pm
WCC Assembly: presentation
Archbishops’ Council Annual Report: deemed approval
Audit Committee Annual Report: deemed approval
SOC item: deemed approval
Monday, 10 July
9.30 am
Prayers
Women Bishops: Next steps
2.30 pm
Commission on Urban Life and Faith Report
8.30 pm
Clergy Terms of Service: presentation by Professor David McClean, followed by questions
Tuesday, 11 July
9.30 am
Prayers
Legislative Business
Private Member’s Motion: Married Couples’ Tax Allowance
Not later than 1 pm
Prorogation
Jonathan Wynne-Jones in a Telegraph article Church leaders ‘back to square one’ as talks on women bishops fail writes:
The Church of England’s plans to allow women to become bishops are in disarray after its leaders failed to reach agreement on how to introduce the historic reform.
and
22 Commentsthe House of Bishops will ask next month’s General Synod for more time to work out a mechanism which they hope will prevent the Church from descending into civil war over the issue.
Full transcripts of the proceedings at February’s meeting of General Synod are now online. There are separate files for each half day and there are links to them here on the Church of England’s website, and here on mine.
0 CommentsThe awaited ECUSA report on Windsor has been published. You can download One Baptism, One Hope in God’s Call The Report of the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a 444k pdf file.
This, and other papers for General Convention 2006 can be downloaded from this page.
The official press release is here.
An html copy of the wording of the resolutions (only) is here.
PDF files containing preliminary translations into Spanish and French of the summary, and the resolutions can be found here.
10 CommentsUpdate March 2011 Comments on this article are now closed, but see Church Representation Rules 2011.
Church House Publishing has just issued the 2006 edition of the Church Representation Rules. The rules are not online (but perhaps they ought to be) and the published edition does not list what has actually changed since the previous (2004) edition. The changes are in Statutory Instrument 2004 No 1889, the legal instrument that put them into effect. As this will make little sense without (and probably even with) reference to the old version of the rules I give a summary of the changes below the fold.
422 CommentsThe results of the clergy elections for the Archbishops’ Council have been announced:
Archbishops’ Council: Clergy members elected.
This completes the current round of elections to the Council; a complete list of members can be found here.
0 CommentsGeneral Synod meets from 6 to 9 February 2006. Links to the online agenda follow together with a list of papers mentioned in the agenda. Links are made to available online copies. This list will be updated.
The Business Committee’s forecast of future business is copied below the fold.
The Church of England’s own list of papers is here and here is a press release on the agenda.
Agenda
Monday 6 February
Tuesday 7 February
Wednesday 8 February
Thursday 9 February
Questions
Papers
GS 1596A Admission of Baptised Children to Holy Communion Regualtions
GS 1596Y Report by the House of Bishops (included in GS 1596A)
GS 1601 Mutual Expectations: The Church Of England And Church Colleges/Universities Report By The Board Of Education
GS 1603 Report By The Business Committee
GS 1604 Ethical Investment: Report By The Ethical Investment Advisory Group
GS 1605 House Of Bishops’ Women Bishops Group: Report To The General Synod From A Working Group Chaired By The Bishop Of Guildford.
GS 1605A Note by the Presidents
GS 1606 Seeds In Holy Ground: A Future For The Rural Church?
GS 1607 Into The New Quinquennium
GS 1609 Hospital And Health Care Chaplaincy
GS 1610 The Church’s Built Heritage Annex 1 Annex 3
GS Misc 801 Pushing At The Boundaries Of Unity: Anglicans And Baptists In Conversation
GS Misc 807 Ecumenical Responses To Women Bishops In The Church Of England?
GS Misc 808 Bicentenary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
GS Misc 812A Private Member’s Motion – Readers – A background note by Nigel Holmes
GS Misc 812B Background Paper from the Ministry Division Annex
GS Misc 813 The Human Genome: Background note from the Diocese of Guildford
Other papers circulated to Synod members
Summary decisions of the most recent meeting of the House of Bishops (January 2006)
0 CommentsThe report of the House of Bishops’ Women Bishops Group (the Guildford Report) is released today and is online here. The report’s principal conclusions are copied below the fold.
This morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme carried an interview with Christina Rees and the Bishop of Fulham about the report. Listen to it with Real Audio (6m 03s)
Update
The official press release on the Guildford Report is here. Note that this includes the introductory remarks made at the press conference (scroll down).
Important related document:
Note by the Presidents (GS 1605A) is here. An html copy is here.
More Updates – initial press reports
BBC partial transcript of the interview mentioned above
BBC Compromise plan on women bishops
BBC video report (2 minutes) Church compromise on women bishops
BBC Robert Pigott Anglicans get women bishops plan
Reuters Paul Majendie Anglicans could have woman spiritual head
Press Association Martha Linden Door opens for first female Archbishop of Canterbury
Guardian Stephen Bates Church seeks compromise over women bishops
The Times Ruth Gledhill ‘Tea time’ report on women bishops sets up Synod battle
Also, an earlier report by Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph that seems pretty accurate in the light of today’s press conference: ‘Robust’ meeting ends with bishops stalling at letting women join their ranks
There are two press releases today from the Church of England about church attendance.
New attendance figures show mixed picture for church-going
Figures just released by the Church of England for 2004 show a mixed picture for trends in church attendance.
Regular Sunday church attendance fell by one per cent – largely offsetting a similar increase the previous year. But weekly and monthly churchgoing held steady and the number of children and young people at services rose by two per cent.
The new statistics confirm that more than 1.7 million people attend Church of England church and cathedral worship each month while around 1.2 million attend each week – on Sunday or during the week – and just over one million each Sunday. …
The full statistics are here.
Churches packed for Christmas past
Reports from across the Church of England suggest Christmas 2005 was a cracker for church attendance.
An opinion poll suggesting increasing numbers are attending church services at Christmas has been backed up by anecdotal evidence gathered from across the Church of England. In the specially-commissioned survey released last month, pollster ORB found that 43 per cent of adults were expected to attend a church service over the Christmas period.
It wasn’t just the queue snaking from the doors of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, where the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols again saw hundreds attempting to get a seat; all over the country, churches experienced a growth in the number of people seeking an opportunity to worship. …
The survey results are here, and the original press release here.
1 CommentThe outline agenda for the February 2006 group of sessions of the General Synod is now online here and is copied below.
Sitting times: 9.30 am to 1 pm and 2.30 pm (3.00 p.m Monday) to 7 pm (5.30 p.m. Thursday)
Monday, 6 February
Afternoon
Prayers, welcomes, progress of Measures
The appointment of the Chairs of the Business Committee and the Appointments Committee
Business Committee Report
Dates of Groups of Sessions: July/November 2008
Presentation on ecumenical responses to the Rochester Report
Presentation on Pensions Issues
Ethical Investment
Tuesday, 7 February
Morning
Holy Communion
Women in the Episcopate: report of the Guildford Group
Afternoon
Rural Affairs and the Church of England
Anglican/Baptist Conversations
Church Colleges/Universities and the Church of England: Mutual Expectations
Wednesday, 8 February
Morning
Prayers
Legislative Business
Reader Ministry: Private Member’s Motion
Into the New Quinquennium
Afternoon
Human Genome: Guildford Diocesan Synod Motion
Bicentenary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade: Southwark Diocesan Synod Motion
Hospital and Health Care Chaplaincy
Thursday, 9 February
Morning
Prayers
Women in the Episcopate
Afternoon
The Church’s Built Heritage
Questions
Transcripts of Proceedings are now available for the November meeting of General Synod.
The last of these contains the answers to all questions reached before close of business. The answers to the questions not reached are here.
The July 2005 Report of Proceedings (in PDF format) has recently become available online here.
2 CommentsThe questions to be asked (and answered) at next week’s General Synod are now online here.
The questions are now also available as a web page here.
Question time is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon (16 November).
13 CommentsThe final papers for next month’s meeting of General Synod are now online and linked in my earlier posting here.
Also circulated to Synod members and now online is a summary of the decisions of the most recent meeting (4/5 October) of the House of Bishops.
0 CommentsThe newly elected General Synod will meet in London on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 November. Papers for this meeting, listed below, are now appearing online. GS 1593 and 1595 are scheduled for dispatch to members on Friday this week.
Agenda
Tuesday
Wednesday
Legislative Business
GS 1592 Report by the Business Committee
GS 1593 Review of Clergy Terms of Service: Property Issues and Progress Report
GS 1595 Facing the Challenge of Terrorism
Papers for Legislative Business
GS 1348B Amending Canon No 24
GS 1594 Payments to the Churches Conservation Trust Order 2005
GS 1594X Report and Explanatory Memorandum
GS 1596 Admission of Baptised Children to Holy Communion Regulations
GS 1596X Report and Explanatory Memorandum
GS 1597 Draft Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure [large file: 5 MB]
GS 1598 Draft Amending Canon No 27
GS 1599 Draft Vacancy in See Committees (Amendment) Regulation
GS 1597-9X Report and Explanatory Memorandum
GS 1600 Clergy Discipline Appeals Rules
GS 1600X Explanatory Memorandum
The following statistics were supplied at the press briefing for the November 2005 meeting of the General Synod, held on 21 October.
New General Synod. Figures as at October 2005
Age profile of elected diocesan representatives
|
20s
|
30s
|
40s
|
50s
|
60s
|
70s
|
Average
|
Average in 2000
|
||
| Laity |
189
|
9
|
14
|
22
|
62
|
70
|
12
|
56
|
53
|
|
Clergy
|
182
|
2
|
8
|
74
|
79
|
19
|
0
|
50
|
51
|
Clergy average age reflects the clergy population as a whole.
Gender balance by Houses
|
Female
|
Male
|
Total | |||
| Laity |
84
|
41%
|
120
|
59%
|
204
|
| Clergy |
46
|
23%
|
154
|
77%
|
200
|
| Bishops |
0
|
0%
|
53
|
100%
|
53
|
| Total |
130
|
28%
|
327
|
72%
|
457
|
These figures exclude 9 voting places not currently filled – 6 Bath and Wells laity, 1 religious community laity, Third Estates Commissioner and one appointed Archbishops’ Council place occupied by a diocesan bishop. They also exclude the 10 places available, but rarely filled, for co-opted voting members, and the 13 observer places for deaf, ecumenical and youth representatives.
Gender balance by Houses January 2001
|
Female
|
Male
|
Total | |||
| Laity |
117
|
45%
|
145
|
55%
|
262
|
| Clergy |
27
|
11%
|
227
|
89%
|
254
|
| Bishops |
0
|
0%
|
54
|
100%
|
54
|
| Total |
144
|
25%
|
426
|
75%
|
570
|
(These figures exclude 1 voting place not filled – one appointed Archbishops’ Council place occupied by a diocesan bishop. They also exclude 10 places available, but rarely filled, for co-opted voting members and 8 observer places for ecumenical representatives.)
3 CommentsThere was a splendid interview of Dr John Sentamu, the new Archbishop of York, on the BBC Today programme this morning. Listen to it here.
Friday afternoon update
A number of online reports of the interview have now appeared.
Telegraph Archbishop of York reveals his anger at racist letters
Times Racists sent excrement-filled letters to black Archbishop
BBC Hate mail sent to new archbishop
Anglican Mainstream has published this fragment of a transcript.
2 CommentsHidden away on the Liverpool Diocesan website is the Bishop of Liverpool’s presidential address to his diocesan synod last month. He writes about his current position on the issue of human sexuality. His conciliatory views may surprise some.
21 CommentsThe Church Times has published today the dates of birth of newly elected members of General Synod. From these data I have calculated some statistics for the elected diocesan representatives of the clergy and laity.
| ages |
clergy
|
laity
|
| mean age |
50
|
56
|
| standard deviation |
7
|
11
|
| oldest |
68
|
78
|
| youngest |
27
|
21
|
For comparison the mean ages in 2000 were 51 (clergy) and 53 (laity).
I have put a histogram of the age distributions here.
[Note: The laity figures exclude Bath & Wells (election postponed), Winchester (figures not available) and two members of unknown age.]
3 CommentsA new General Synod is elected every five years and meets two or three times a year. It comprises three Houses: Bishops, Clergy and Laity. The number of members given below is for the 2005-2010 Synod.
Members vote according to their own conscience; nobody can instruct them how to vote.
Members vote as individuals; there is no voting by diocese as in the USA. The results of votes are decided by counting the numbers of members voting for and against a motion. In most cases the count is of the whole Synod and a simple majority is required for a motion to be passed. Sometimes each House votes separately (and then each House must vote in favour) and in some of these cases a two-thirds majority is required in each House.
A simplified account of how Synod is elected follows below the fold.
1 CommentI’ve now collected most of the Synod election results. The missing results are
Armed Services
Bath and Wells (clergy)
Carlisle
Chester (Chester archdeaconry laity)
Exeter
Gloucester
Newcastle
Norwich
Ripon and Leeds (laity)
Salisbury (laity)
Sodor & Man
Truro
Winchester (laity)
Channel Islands
London University
Other Universities (Southern)
Other Universities (Northern)
If you have any of the missing results please email them to me here.
People will be trying to analyze the new Synod. Here is an attempt by Church Society to do this for the diocesan bishops and an analysis by their general secretary David Phillips.
19 Comments