Riazat Butt has written an excellent article for the Guardian, titled Catholic defectors will leave Anglicans breathing sigh of relief – bishop.
Bishop Christopher Hill of Guildford is quoted:
A Church of England bishop says congregations will breathe a “sigh of relief” this week when hundreds of worshippers defect to the Roman Catholic church, potentially drawing a line under the schism over the ordination of women.
Up to 900 Anglicans, including 60 clergy, are preparing to be received into the Roman Catholic faith in special services during Holy Week.
The Right Rev Christopher Hill said congregations losing clergy or laity to the Personal Ordinariate, a Vatican initiative allowing Anglicans to convert while keeping elements of their spiritual heritage, would allow the church to move on after being “racked” by the issue of women priests.
Hill, who is the bishop of Guildford and chair of the Council of Christian Unity, said while there was sadness at congregations losing their clergy or co-worshippers – in some instances both – there was reason to be positive.
“Where a decision has been made then those who go will have a bigger agenda, as do those who stay. They can leave this issue alone. It has racked these congregations. It has absorbed a lot of energy. Where a church has had such an exodus, there will be a sigh of relief that a decision has been made.”
Riazat also reports on two parishes where clergy and some laity have left. One of these is St Barnabas, Tunbridge Wells.
For the congregation of St Barnabas, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the loss of a priest and 72 worshippers has caused personal and practical difficulties.
All but two members of the parochial church council – the executive body of the parish – have left, and people with no prior involvement in the running of the church have been forced to help out.
Christine Avery, a churchwarden who has been praying at St Barnabas for 20 years, said: “We have to make ends meet and it’s a big church. Everyone is doing jobs they never thought they could do. But there’s a great atmosphere and we want this church to stay open.”
On Palm Sunday a reduced but resolute congregation threw themselves into a Sung Eucharist and a procession along the Camden Road.
Avery, and others, say they have noticed that people who had stayed away from St Barnabas have returned, as have some who said they were leaving for the Ordinariate. The church is by no means united on women’s ordination, but one worshipper implied there were fewer divisions than before the 70 departures…
Some more background on the situation in this parish here.
An earlier report in the Telegraph by Jonathan Wynne-Jones mentioned St Mary the Virgin, Torquay. A letter in the Telegraph today (scroll down) reports that:
43 CommentsAnglican parish carries on despite departures
SIR – Jonathan Wynne-Jones reports on events at St Mary the Virgin, Torquay (“The faithful torn apart”, News Review, April 17). As an honorary priest at St Mary’s I know that when the vicar, the Rev David Lashbrooke, announced his departure to join the Roman Catholic Church on March 6 it came as a shock to some parishioners, but it was not unexpected because there had been speculation for months.
Some 25 adults and children went with him to the Ordinariate and that did cause some distress because they went without notice, some abandoning their offices in the parish.
Since Ash Wednesday on March 9 the congregation has begun to grow under the exemplary leadership of Fr Dexter Bracey, the assistant curate, supported by two retired priests. Sunday services have been adjusted, but numbers have increased and the atmosphere is purposeful and joyful as people grow closer and more confident.
There are new churchwardens and a newly elected parochial church council, so we are moving forward still rooted in our Catholic heritage and determined to keep the faith within the Church of England.
“Though much is taken much abides,” as Tennyson wrote.
We miss our friends who have gone to the Ordinariate but we continue to pray for them as they seek to follow their consciences and remain faithful to their calling.
Fr Warwick Whelan
Torquay, Devon
The Bishop of Oxford, John Pritchard, who is also chairman of the Church of England’s Board of Education, has been speaking about school admission policies.
This began with an article in the TES Education Supplement C of E opens school gates to non-believers
The Rt Revd John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, said that admissions policies favouring religious children should be changed, even if accepting a broader range of pupils damaged results.
“I’m really committed to our schools being as open as they can be,” Revd [sic] Pritchard told The TES. “I know that there are other philosophies that will start at the other end, that say that these are for our church families, but I have never been as convinced of that as others.
“Every school will have a policy that has a proportion of places for church youngsters … what I would be saying is that number ought to be minimised because our primary function and our privilege is to serve the wider community. Ultimately I hope we can get the number of reserved places right down to 10 per cent.”
The Bishop’s comments come ahead of guidelines on admissions to be published by the CofE during the summer. Around half of the church’s 4,800 schools are voluntary aided, meaning they control their own admissions policies.
He also gave an interview to the BBC News TV channel, which is linked from Bishop: ‘Open school access, even if standards fall’.
And he gave an interview to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: Church schools to be ‘fair’ to non-believers.
Other news reports:
Guardian Church of England schools urged to offer more places to non-Christians
Telegraph Limit believers to 10pc of pupils in CoE schools, urges bishop
Organisations which have been campaigning for such a policy change responded:
ACCORD Accord welcomes radical recommendation to reduce religious discrimination in Church of England schools
British Humanist Association New Church of England plans to reduce discrimination in school admissions welcome but do not go far enough
National Secular Society Bishop admits that church schools succeed because of selection
Ekklesia Church schools should end selection by religion
Further responses:
Telegraph Bishop under fire over quota plan for church schools
Polly Toynbee at Cif belief Faith schools: now even the church admits they’re unfair
The Archbishop of Canterbury has marked Holy Week by launching a redesign of his website. The contents appear to be much the same as before. BUT everything has been moved, so old links to the site no longer work. All they do is take you to the home page.
If you use the rss feed to read news items from the site, that too has moved. There is a link to the new feed on the home page.
The only announcement that I can find of this redesign was made at 00:03 on Wednesday of this week on the Archbishop’s recently created Facebook fan page. Lambeth Palace did not announce it on Twitter.
3 CommentsThere are many General Synod resources on the Church of England website. Here are some that have been recently added or updated.
The verbatim Report of Proceedings: February 2011 is now available.
The verbatim report of the meeting of the House of Laity held on 7 February 2011 is also available.
The Agendas and Papers page now includes links to the General Synod Index. This is a classified list of General Synod papers, issued after each quinquenium, that now goes back to the first General Synod in 1970.
There is also a list of Synod papers in number order with links to online papers. It is not yet complete but is gradually being extended.
There is a forecast of the business for the July 2011 meeting of General Synod. There is a note here to say that the final agenda will be determined by a meeting of the Business Committee on May 25 2011.
There are up-to-date lists of private members’ motions and diocesan synod motions.
1 CommentThere have been several articles recently in the Living Church by Church of England writers.
Andrew Goddard has written about Establishment in the CofE.
See Arbiters of the Faith?
The Church of England, wrestling with internal differences over provision for opponents of women bishops and over responses to same-sex relationships, could soon find a further contentious topic being added to the mix: the question of establishment, the church’s relationship with the state. This has been highlighted by two recent developments in which government ministers or Members of Parliament have pressed for a certain conception of equality in English law and society…
Paul Avis and Geoffrey Rowell have both written about the Anglican Covenant.
See Catholicity Outweighs Autonomy by Avis.
The future of the Anglican Communion is in jeopardy. The Windsor Report proposed an Anglican Covenant, centering on mutual commitment, to secure a unified future for the Communion. The Anglican Covenant is the only credible proposal that I am aware of to help hold this family of churches together. The alternative to the Covenant is to allow the present sharp tensions to be worked out in the formal separation of some churches of the Communion from others — and that means schism, and the fracture and possible dissolution of the Anglican Communion…
And Belonging Together by Rowell.
51 Comments…As vice-chair for a number of years of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations, I am aware of how divisions in the Communion pose challenges to our ecumenical partners in dialogue — who are we talking to? Do Anglicans affirm same-sex relationships as equal and equivalent to marriage, or do they uphold Christian teaching of marriage as being a lifelong union between a man and a woman? Behind the particular questions are questions about authority in the Communion, and our belonging together. The Anglican Covenant emerges out of this situation and is a result of careful consultation. If we can make ecumenical agreements with other churches we ought clearly be able to do so among ourselves…
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Christopher Lowson, AKC, STM, MTh, LLM, Director of Ministry at the Archbishops’ Council, for election as Bishop of Lincoln in succession to the Right Reverend Dr John Charles Saxbee, BA, PhD, on his resignation on the 31 January 2011.
Press release from 10 Downing Street Bishop of Lincoln
Press release from diocese: Appointment of 72nd Bishop of Lincoln
11 CommentsThe Church Commissioners have announced their financial results. The full press release is now available here.
1 CommentChurch Commissioners’ results confirm long-term growth
The Church Commissioners have today announced a 15.2 per cent return on their investments during 2010. Their fund has now outperformed its comparator group over the past 10 and 15 years.*
Despite challenging economic times for both the Church and wider society, the Commissioners – who contributed more than £200 million in 2010 towards the cost of maintaining the mission of the Church of England – grew their fund to £5.3 billion (from £4.8 billion at December 31, 2009).
Although most of the costs of the Church’s mission are met by the generous giving of today’s parishioners, the Commissioners contribute around 17p in the pound towards the total. The Commissioners’ contribution is biased towards supporting poorer dioceses.
Today’s results show that the Commissioners are able to distribute £26 million more each year to the Church than if their investments had performed only at the industry average over the last ten years, while pursuing their policy of maintaining the real value of the fund.Andreas Whittam Smith, First Church Estates Commissioner, said: “These results are good news for the Church and its vital role in the life of the nation. Our mission is to support the Church’s ministry, particularly in areas of need and opportunity – we meet that by ensuring our investments achieve sustainable long-term growth.”
Returns from the fund, held in a broad range of assets, pay for: clergy pensions for service up to the end of 1997; supporting poorer dioceses with the costs of ministry; funding some mission activities; paying for bishops’ ministries and some cathedral costs; and funding the legal framework for parish reorganisation.
The Commissioners manage their investments within ethical guidelines, with advice from the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group.
Andrew Brown, Secretary to the Church Commissioners, said: “Investment performance was strong across the board in 2010 underlying the importance of our diversified portfolio. We plan to continue to diversify the fund into other attractive and appropriate asset classes to reduce further the fund’s overall volatility.
“In addition, our Assets Committee has adopted a deliberate policy of being more active in terms of the fund’s overall asset allocation, adjusting the level of risk depending on the market opportunity.”The main factors behind the fund’s strong performance in 2010 were:
- The Commissioners’ higher weighting in shares, particularly those held in companies with overseas interests.
- The bias to higher performing smaller companies within UK shareholdings.
- The low weighting in UK government bonds, index-linked bonds and UK investment grade bonds and higher investment in property compared with the average pension fund.
- The Commissioners’ property portfolio achieved a 15.4 per cent return, exceeding its comparator group, the Investment Property Databank.
- The contribution from the Commissioners’ multi-asset fund managers.
The Commissioners’ overall 15.2 per cent return was achieved against a comparator performance of 12.7 per cent for 2010. Over the past 10 years, total returns averaged 6.3 per cent per year, against the comparator group’s 4.5 per cent. Over the past 15 years, the Commissioners outperformed the comparator group with an average annual return of 9.3 per cent against 7.0 per cent…
Updated
The English House of Bishops has issued new Guidance on the marriage of persons from outside the European Economic Area which can be downloaded from here.
This page links to two documents:
In addition, reference is made in the first document to:
Here is the official press release: Bishops act to tackle sham marriages
And some press reports:
Alan Travis in The Guardian: Sham marriages targeted in Church of England crackdown
Tom Whitehead in The Telegraph: New rules for migrant church weddings
BBC: Church of England in ‘sham marriage’ crackdown
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Nicholas Roderick Holtam, BD, MA, FKC, Hon DCL, Vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields in the diocese of London, for election as Bishop of Salisbury in succession to the Right Reverend Dr David Staffurth Stancliffe, MA, DD, on his resignation on 30 September 2010.
Press Release from 10 Downing Street: Diocese of Salisbury
Statement on diocesan website: New Bishop of Salisbury Announced
Statement on the St Martin-in-the-Fields wesbite: Revd Nicholas Holtam appointed Bishop of Salisbury
18 CommentsBRIN (British Religion in Numbers) reports on a study of Self-Supporting Ministry in the UK.
In 2009 3,100 or 27% of all the Church of England’s diocesan licensed ministers were in self-supporting ministry (SSM), sometimes described as non-stipendiary ministry. Hitherto, comparatively little has been known about these SSMs and how they are utilized by the Church.
That omission is now rectified by research published in the Church Times of 1 April 2011 (pp. 5, 22-3) and 8 April 2011 (pp. 4, 22-3, 30). These articles, together with some of the raw data in chart form, can be downloaded from:
The study was undertaken by Rev Dr Teresa Morgan, Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at Oriel College, Oxford and herself in the SSM, in the parish of Littlemore.
Fieldwork took place during the autumn of 2010 by means of an online questionnaire, to which 890 SSMs in the UK (but mostly from England) responded, representing 28% of the universe.
SSMs were found to contribute a significant amount of time to their ministry, with one-quarter putting in more than 30 hours a week and a further one-fifth between 20 and 30 hours. Only 15% spent fewer than 10 hours a week on their ministry.
Moreover, the overwhelming majority regarded their ministry as a privilege and a joy and had received extensive pre- and post-ordination training.
Notwithstanding, many respondents gave the clear impression that they were ‘ignored, overlooked or under-used’ in the Church, ‘parked somewhere, and left’, and ‘sidelined’. Some commented that stipendiary ministers appeared not to regard SSMs as ‘proper’ clergy and treated them badly.
Likewise, many SSMs reported a degree of stagnation in their ministry since ordination. 46% had held only one post since ordination, and 41% reported no change in their ministry during this time. Just 13% had lead responsibility for ministry in their parish or chaplaincy. 59% exercised no significant ministry beyond the Church. Almost one-quarter claimed to have received no ministerial development review. Lailonni Ballixxx getting pounded hard Mouth Fuck and Black Cock Inserted Deep Hot Naked Teen Chatting On Webcam Tattooed skinny teen gets screwed hard Veronica Rodriguez fucked after deep throat Hunk is stimulating babes needs with his rubbing Sporty MILF Gets Gangbanged Busty Jasmine Black tertures tattooed Paige Delight https://www.pornjk.com/tags/xxnx/ Natural titted blonde gets fucked and creamed Sexy chick having a meaty cock for her twat Natalie gets pussy pounded by huge cock Horniness groundbreaking study Cute teen Alex Mae punished and smashed Two Horny Girls Making Out Beautiful Kharlie Stone bangs in her tiny pussy
Morgan is critical of the Church for its lack of strategy with regard to SSM and especially of the failure of dioceses to consider SSMs in their planning processes. She dismisses the raft of alleged impediments to the effective use of SSMs often cited by Church leaders, arguing that her survey has empirically disproved them.
The two reports in the Church Times are
Unpaid, unregarded, and under-used
Equipped and ready for action
although the second of these is only available to subscribers until Friday.
11 CommentsThe following passage comes from Archbishop Okoh’s opening address to the Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria held on 3 March 2011. (It has only just come to my attention.)
33 CommentsVisit to the UK: In our meeting in Lagos, we were mandated to visit the UK to ascertain the condition of Nigerian Anglicans, and how to help them. Our first attempt was on 17th December 2010, which failed because excessive snow fall, led to the closure of Heathrow airport. We rescheduled for 16th February, 2011. Thank God we were able to go. It was a full delegation. The Group was made up of:
The Most Revd Nicholas D. Okoh – Primate
The Most Revd Joseph Akinfenwa – Ibadan
The Most Revd Michael Akinyemi – Kwara
The Most Revd Bennet Okoro Owerri
The Most Revd Ignatius Kattey Niger Delta
The Most Revd Emmanuel Egbunu – Lokoja
The Rt. Revd David Onuoha – Secretary
Barr. Abraham Yisa – RegistrarThe delegation was well received by the Nigerian High Commission in London. There was a brief meeting and an interactive section. The group also visited the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. Our message:
The need to allow Nigerians to worship “the Nigeria way” in abandoned Church buildings or allow them a scheduled time in parish Churches where they could express themselves unreservedly in worship, to save us from the unceasing and intense bleeding of our young executive Anglicans moving over to the New Generation Churches due to what they describe as “cold” worship style. Our request was viewed positively by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England. We also visited the Lord Bishop of London and the Bishop of Southwark. Other places visited include Manchester and Birmingham. In summary the Archbishop requested us to put our proposal into writing. He assured us that it is a practical proposal. We addressed a group of Nigerians of different age brackets in London, Manchester and Birmingham and had a special session with representatives of Nigerian Clergy in the UK. Our visit was said to be timely. But a few had their reservations.
Another issue which has emerged in this visit is the status, sponsorship and future of the Nigerian Chaplaincy in the UK. At the moment they are enjoying the last part of the generosity of the CMS, and the grace and benevolence of St. Marylebone. These are issues requiring urgent attention.
Letters published last week in the Church Times can now be found at Anglican Covenant: responses to last week’s Church Times guide.
12 CommentsThe Satirical Christian has written Ecclesiastical Dominos.
How do you get people to vote for something they don’t want?
In the Church of England, it’s easy. You employ the domino effect.
Take the Anglican Covenant, for instance. It is clear that many people in the Church of England are deeply suspicious of it. In the debate in General Synod last November many voices raised deep misgivings about it, even among the House of Bishops. In fact, enough people were sufficiently concerned to mean that if the vote was taken purely on what people thought, it would probably have been chucked out there and then…
Bosco Peters has written Anglican Covenant.
…I have tended towards the approach that if you have a problem because you lost something in the garden, to get a solution that’s where you should be looking – even if the light in the house is better! I do not think that the “Covenant” is the appropriate tool as a solution for the “problem”, just as I do not think that a sledgehammer is the appropriate tool as a solution for screwing two planks together.
The “problem” is the ethics of committed same sex relationships. Discussing that is IMO what should be happening. Of course, for some, there is nothing to discuss…
And he continues with
4 CommentsHow to get a province to sign up to the “Covenant”
Lessons from/for the Church of England1) Make sure that the lowest voting percentage possible be required (2/3 or 3/4 in all houses would be just hopeless to get the “Covenant” through. And involving parliament in the state church’s significant signing away of its autonomy would just be a step too far.) How embarrassing if others signed up to the “Covenant” and the Church of England didn’t!
Updated
The Government Equalities Office has announced the opening of this consultation.
Press release: Civil partnerships on religious premises: a consultation
Opening date: 31 March 2011
Closing date: 23 June 2011
In February we announced our commitment to enabling civil partnerships to be registered on the religious premises of those faith groups who wished to host them. This will be done by implementing section 202 of the Equality Act 2010. This provision removes the legal prohibition on civil partnerships being registered on religious premises, enables regulations to be made setting out the arrangements for these premises to be approved by the local authority and clarifies that there is no obligation on faith groups to have civil partnership registrations on their premises.
Civil partnerships on religious premises: a consultation sets out detailed proposals for this voluntary measure which enhances the freedom of both faith groups and same-sex couples. The proposals are designed to enable faith groups to opt in, respect the different decision-making structures of different faith groups, minimise the risk of successful legal challenges and be straightforward for local authorities to operate. The law will make clear that faith groups are not obliged to host civil partnerships. It would also be unlawful for a civil partnership to be registered on a religious premises that had not been approved for the purpose by the local authority. That approval will be given only with the approval of the faith group concerned.
We propose a two stage process for enabling civil partnerships to be registered on particular religious premises. First the faith group concerned will have to consent to this and the consultation document sets out how this could happen. Then the local authority in whose area the premises is located will have to approve the premises and the consultation document sets out what conditions should apply to the approval. The registration of civil partnerships would remain secular, despite taking place on religious premises, but a religious service could be held to mark the registration.
This consultation will be of particular interest to:
- faith groups including religions, denominations and individual independent religious congregations
- Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) organisations, LGB individuals and their families and friends
- Local authorities, including registrars and other relevant local authority employees
- owners and managers of buildings approved for civil marriages and civil partnerships
Comments from other interested parties are also welcome.
Download the consultation
The official CofE response to the second sentence of this paragraph (emphasis added) from the consultation document will be interesting:
21 Comments1.8 Please tell us whether you are responding as an individual or whether you
are representing the views of an organisation. If you are responding on
behalf of an organisation please tell us whom the organisation represents
and, where possible, how the views of members have been sought.
It seems that Clergy have no ‘office-holder’ option when they fill in their census forms.
According to an announcement from St Albans diocese (scroll down), and no doubt others:
The Archbishops’ Council says:
(a) We very much regret that The Office for National Statistics has not provided a box that allows non-employee office holders to respond accurately.
(b) Clergy will have to decide whether to tick employee or self-employed, neither of which is accurate.
Considering all the fuss that has been made about the status of clergy as office-holders, this has to count as a #fail for the Archbishops’ Council.
12 CommentsTwo cathedral deans have recently been appointed as suffragan bishops.
The Dean of Exeter, Jonathan Meyrick, has been appointed Bishop of Lynn (Norwich diocese).
No. 10 announcement
Diocesan announcement
The Dean of Rochester, Adrian Newman, has been appointed Bishop of Stepney (London diocese).
No. 10 announcement
Diocesan announcement
There are some brief details of the Appointments Committee of the Church of England (and an out-of-date up-to-date list of members) on the Church of England website here, and I have copied this below the fold.
But much more useful and interesting is the paper GS Misc 963 Appointments 2010-2015 which “provides details about the work of the Appointments Committee of the Church of England and sets out some of the appointments to be made in the quinquennium”. Although dated October 2010 (and presumably issued to General Synod members then) it has, I think, only just appeared on the Elections and appointments page of the CofE website.
2 CommentsFrom the Lichfield Diocesan Website
Lichfield Diocese approves Anglican Communion Covenant
Date 19/03/11
The Lichfield Diocesan Synod has become the first in the Church of England to approve the Anglican Communion Covenant with overwhelming votes in favour in all three houses (bishops, clergy and laity).
The vote at today’s meeting in Longton Hall near Stoke on Trent is in response to the General Synod’s decision to refer the matter to the dioceses. All 44 dioceses in the Church of England are being asked to “approve the draft Act of Synod adopting the Anglican Communion Covenant.” Last week the diocese of Wakefield voted to reject the motion; and the diocese of Hereford voted to refer the matter to deanery synods for wider discussion.
An attempt to adjourn the debate in Lichfield diocese so it could be referred to deanery synods was rejected with 47 voting in favour of an adjournment and 60 voting against.
Before the debate, members heard from the Revd Dr Andrew Goddard, lecturer in ethics at Trinity College, Bristol, who introduced the Covenant and outlined some of the arguments for and against it.
The idea behind an Anglican Communion Covenant – the closest thing to a constitution for the worldwide Anglican Communion – was first proposed in the Windsor report of 2004, following developments in relation to same-sex partnerships in North America. It was envisaged that the Anglican Covenant would “make explicit and forceful the loyalty and bonds of affection” which govern the relationships between the churches of the Anglican Communion.
A text of the Covenant was sent to all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion for their approval in December 2009. Each Province has different governance structures and it is expected to be a number of years before all the Provinces complete the process for acceptance or rejection. The Anglican Consultative Council will discuss progress at its meeting expected in November 2012.
In the Church of England, the House of Bishops agreed in May 2010 to commend the Covenant to the General Synod and a draft Act of Synod was debated by the General Synod in November last year and referred to diocesan synods. If a majority of dioceses agree to the draft Act of Synod it will return to the General Synod for final approval, possibly in 2012.
The Anglican Communion is not a single church or a federation of churches but a collection of 44 different churches made up of 34 Provinces, four United Churches, and six other churches, spread across the globe; with an estimated 80 million Christians.
The tensions in the Communion which arose as a result of the liberalising actions of the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada in the area of sexuality highlighted that there were no formal structures or agreements for handling disputes when they arise. The Covenant is designed to balance the need to define how the churches of the Communion formally relate to each other without creating a formal constitution or federation; continuing to hold the Communion together through mutual relationships.
The Diocese of Lichfield has formal mission partnerships with the Dioceses of West Malaysia, Kuching and Singapore in South East Asia, Matlosane in South Africa and Qu’Appelle in Canada. Churches within the diocese enjoy individual relationships with churches across the Communion.
The result of the vote in the Lichfield Diocesan Synod were:
| House | For | Against | Abstain |
| Bishops | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Clergy | 39 | 11 | 1 |
| Laity | 57 | 9 | 1 |
| Total | 100 | 20 | 2 |
The audio of the Synod debate will be available on the Lichfield Diocesan website on Monday afternoon: lichfield.anglican.org/chadnet/synod.
69 CommentsHugh Muir in the Diary column of today’s Guardian, is straplined A sensible move by the Church of England – will wonders never cease?
25 CommentsChurchill said the Americans do the right thing when all other avenues have been exhausted – but he could just as easily have been talking about the Church of England. Little is achieved without muddle and controversy. And this sadly characterises the way the powers have handled the future deployment of the Rev Nick Holtam, capable vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, who would have been a bishop by now were it not for the fact that his wife of more than 30 years was previously married and divorced. Conservatives on the bench of bishops used the “taint” of the spouse’s divorce to effectively veto Rev Nick’s elevation. The fact that he’s a liberal didn’t help. But God might well reflect that the Church of England works in mysterious ways. Sometimes that’s good. For it does appear that Rev Nick is going to get a mitre after all. We are told to be watchful of Salisbury. And it is probably no coincidence that the next-door bishop Michael Scott-Joynt of Winchester – the church’s arch Tory bishop who spoke out against the appointment of bishops with divorced wives last year – is imminently for retirement. We’ll miss him but everything may progress more smoothly in his absence. And we’ll get along just fine with Bishop Nick.
Updated
The Diocese of Birmingham voted last Saturday in favour of women in the episcopate of the Church of England.
Press Statement Monday 14th March 2011 from Women and the Church (WATCH)
Massive Support for Women Bishops Legislation in Birmingham
WATCH is delighted by the result of the first Diocesan vote on the law that will allow women to become bishops in the Church of England. In Birmingham on Saturday the Diocesan Synod voted by 75 to 4 in favour of the legislation with its accompanying provisions for those who will not accept women as bishops. To make that endorsement even more clear, two motions that asked for even more provisions for those opposed were defeated, with only a small minority of people voting for them.
Hilary Cotton, WATCH Vice Chair and Head of Campaign, said, ‘This indicates two things to us: firstly, that people in Birmingham want the Church to get on with making women bishops as soon as possible and, secondly, they are satisfied with the provision that this legislation makes for those who will not accept women bishops.’
Hilary Cotton: Campaign Co-ordinator – Home: 01483856827 Mobile: 07793817058
Sally Barnes: Media Officer – Home: 020 8731 0960 Mobile 07759343335Notes for Editors
WATCH (Women and the Church) is a voluntary organisation of women and men who are campaigning to see women take their place alongside men without discrimination and at every level in the Church of England. This requires the removal of current legal obstacles to the consecration of women as bishops. WATCH believes that the full equality of women and men in the Church is part of God’s will for all people, and reflects the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.
The Church Times carried a report on 18 March, Women: yes-vote taken in Birmingham.
12 Comments