Updated on Thursday to add Church Times article.
Earlier updates are here and here.
The Cathedral has advertised for a new dean; applications close on 6 June 2025.
Meanwhile Gwyn Loader reports for BBC News that the Cathedral has spending suspended over debts.
The Revd Dr John Prysor-Jones and the Very Revd Professor Gordon McPhate have written to the Church Times: Bangor Cathedral inquiry needed. They are members of the College of Priests at Bangor Cathedral, where they have worshipped since retirement. There are press reports on this.
Madeleine Davies Church Times Bangor Cathedral Chapter puts freeze on new spending
This comment wrongly appeared under Church Mouse on here. My lack of IT skills are to blame, as it should have appeared here on this thead. Apologies from a bit of a Luddite. It’s pretty obvious what the Church in Wales Bench of Bishops think is action in the current crisis facing the church and emanating from Bangor. I wrote on Sunday to the Bishop of St Asaph, as senior bishop, to express my concerns and ask for action. Here below is the really rather pathetic, non-reply I received a little earlier. “In consultation with the archbishop” he writes in… Read more »
Love that it ends with the claim that “your letter is being taken seriously”. The lack of self awareness is classic CofE.
I beg to differ. The Bishop of St Asaph is not a man to use words lightly. He is also not a man to tolerate the sort of torrent of episcopal misbehaviour alleged in the Bangor case. If he says the letter is being taken seriously, I have no doubt that it is. “Seriously”, is not the same as, “publicly”. I said, in a previous thread on this subject, that the bishops of the Church in Wales have before them an unenviable task. At least two of them owe their elevation to the episcopate to the present Archbishop. Another will… Read more »
Well said. I am less confident than you seem to be in +St Asaph, however. The phrase ‘in consultation with the Archbishop’ is unfortunate to say the least, and indicative of collusion at worst. In a situation where, as you rightly point to, conflicts of interest abound (and others have alleged further conflicts of interest in so much as some of the Bishops may have themselves been beneficiaries of what the alleged financial irregularities would appear to have funded), it is vital that the person overseeing any investigation and/or action should understand this concept very clearly. I haven’t yet seen… Read more »
Thank you Lister. Yes, ‘seriously’ does not mean ‘publicly’.
What happens in hidden rooms should always be exposed to the light. This private consultation process makes a mockery of transparency openness and justice. Hopefully some whistleblowers will leak these back room shenanigans to the media again. Saint Davyd would be rolling in his grave with shame.
‘At least two of them owe their elevation to the episcopate to the present Archbishop.’
I know nothing about appointment processes in the CiW. Are bishops appointed personally by the Archbishop, rather than by an appointment committee in the the C of E?
The Archbishop is entitled to nominate a suffragan bishop who serves at the pleasure of that archbishop. That suffragan then becomes the seventh member of the Bench of Bishops. When the serving archbishop retires, if the next archbishop is bishop of a different diocese the previous archiepiscopal suffragan then becomes a charge on diocesan, as opposed to provincial, finances, if my memory serves me correctly. Archbishop Andrew John has appointed two suffragans in succession, the first having subsequently been elected Bishop of Llandaff. Diocesan bishops are elected by an Electoral College, which is a standing body of laity and clergy… Read more »
Thanks.
I know none of the personalities involved but, just reading that letter, I’d certainly NOT interpret “in consultation with the Archbishop” to imply any lack of awareness that the Archbishop is part of the problem. Indeed, it could be put there precisely to indicate that they are talking to the Archbishop about the need for him to consider his own future! Or it might, of course, be pretty meaningless. No amount of textual analysis would shed further light.
I note in the first BBC News posting ‘The cathedral acknowledged there was inadequate consultation and information regarding the expenditure on furniture and that the Dean and Chapter of Bangor Cathedral had agreed to repay the costs of the trips abroad.’ Totally inadequate! Typical response of the found out! They were quite content to have the trips funded by the cathedral so they had a free jolly and if it had never come to light then they would have said no more. But now that it is known the response is that ‘oh ok, we will give you the money… Read more »
I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick here. Or I have. These trips were originally charged to the Diocese. Where it says the Dean and Chapter had agreed to repay the costs of the trips abroad, that means repaying the diocese. But where is the money to come from to repay the diocese? I don’t think the Dean and Chapter mean to pay it from their own pockets. Rather, thay have agreed to repay the diocese out of cathedral funds.
How the people who contribute to these funds feel about that, one can guess.
its a very fast turn around for the Dean advert i thought it took months not quite a CNC but not as quick as this
Bangor is not part of the Church of England, and the deanery is not a Crown appointment. The processes of the Church in Wales apply.
After considering what I felt was a rather empty reply last week from the Bishop of St Asaph and discussing it with others, and with the increasing feeling of a number of people that the great difficulties in which the CinW now finds itself need to be expeditiously and openly progressed, I again wrote to him yesterday. I have tried to copy my letter as a comment on here, but it seems it’s too long! If anyone wants to read my letter in full and has suggestions how to post it here, I’d be very grateful. Very briefly, my letter… Read more »