Update Wednesday
Ruth Gledhill has more about this on her blog at Southwark acts against unorthodox ordinations.
Unauthorised Service at Christ Church Surbiton
Press Release from Southwark Diocese
The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Rev Dr Tom Butler, has written to the clergy in his Diocese explaining why he has revoked the licence of the Revd Richard Coekin. This follows the unauthorised ordination of three members of Mr Coekin’s staff team which took place at Christ Church Surbiton on November 2nd. Writing “We do not do schism in the Diocese of Southwark” the Bishop points to Church tradition and law that bishops from outside the Diocese have no authority to perform ordinations within it without the express permission of the Diocesan Bishop.
The case was made more complicated by the bishop concerned being a bishop from the Church of England in South Africa, a church not in communion with the Church of England nor a member of the Anglican Communion
Mr Coekin had earlier threatened to take action of this sort unless the Bishop of Southwark dissociated himself from the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Statement on Civil Partnerships.
As well as revoking Mr Coekin’s licence the Bishop of Southwark made it clear that the three people involved in the unauthorised ordination, Andy Fenton, Richard Perkins, and Loots Lambrechts have no legal authority to claim to exercise ordained ministry in the Church of England in the Diocese of Southwark.
Ends
The full text of the bishop’s letter appears below the fold.
54 CommentsLast Saturday there was this piece on the Today radio programme, which I missed at the time (hat tip AM)
58 CommentsA church in London has had three of its priests ordained by a foreign bishop, in protest at the Church of England’s stance on homosexual relationships. We hear from the church’s minister, Reverend Richard Coekin, and the Rt Reverend John Gladwin, the Bishop of Chelmsford.
Updated
There are several stories about the irregular ordinations that took place in South London this week.
Ruth Gledhill in The Times has Church imports bishop to be tough enough on gays
Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph has Evangelicals defy bishop by holding ‘irregular’ ordinations and it gets covered in the Guardian story on Robinson already linked which has a strapline ‘Rogue’ ordinations escalate church crisis.
As background to this, see these statements:
Reform EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IMPORT AFRICAN BISHOP FOR ORDINATION
the co-mission initiative NEWS OF ALTERNATIVE ORDINATION which has a list of signatures of persons supporting this action, including several well-known names, and a link to a press release in Word format. The full text of the latter is reproduced here, below the fold to make it more easily available.
Anglican Church League Sydney The Anglican Church League, Sydney, expresses unqualified support for London ordinations
Further press coverage:
Reuters UK group imports African bishop in gay clergy row
Ekklesia Conservatives by-pass bishop over ordinations
Back in August, an analysis of the bishops’ Pastoral Statement, written by Andrew Goddard, was published in the Church of England Newspaper but not on their website: The Civil Partnership Act and the Church of England. This escaped my attention at the time.
51 CommentsAnother long but very worthwhile lecture. Rowan Williams delivered the The Richard Hooker Lecture at the Temple Church yesterday.
Richard Hooker (c1554-1600): The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Revisited.
10 CommentsUpdate Thursday The Guardian today carries a news report by Stephen Bates on this, see Church rift deepens over gay bishop’s visit.
The London Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship Committee has sent a letter to DEF members, which criticises the plans for the Changing Attitude service described here.
The full text of this letter can be found below the fold.
67 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 CommentsAnglican Mainstream leaders wrote this letter to the House of Bishops of the CofE. And another one, apparently on 3 October. Anyway, they got a reply from the secretary of the HoB, which they have published. It can be read here. It should be read in full, but does contain the following key paragraphs:
13 CommentsIn relation to the church’s room for manoeuvre in relation to the law there were two separate issues. The first is whether it would have been legally possible for the Church to have made registering a civil partnership incompatible with being in Holy Orders. The second concerns the changes to various references to ‘spouse’ in church legislation (for example on pensions).
On the first, the answer is that there will no doubt be denominations or faith groups who will regard being in a civil partnership as intrinsically incompatible with membership of their ordained ministries. That is the position of the Roman Catholic Church. The law does not preclude that approach where the prohibition is based on doctrine or religious conviction. For the reasons set out above, however, civil partnerships do not necessarily involve activity contrary to the teaching of the Church of England (as contained, for example, in the 1987 Synod motion). The bishops did not, therefore think it warranted to seek to impose a prohibition.
The Church Times carries almost the same election results as Thinking Anglicans, but their list (which reveals the ages of those elected) will not be available on the web until next week.
News report: New Synod looks liberal, but with firm minority voices by Pat Ashworth and Glyn Paflin
Columnist: Synod above politics? Don’t be Sentimental by Giles Fraser
Editorial: When the Synod works well
The Church of England Newspaper interpreted the same results differently:
News report: Synod elections serve up disappointment to liberals
Hansard has published the full text of yesterday’s debate in the House of Lords. You can read it all, starting here
and, after a short unrelated business item, continuing here.
The speeches by bishops can be found as follows:
Bishop of St Albans
Bishop of Oxford
Lord Carey of Clifton
Bishop of London
Lord Habgood
and a short intervention by the Bishop of Winchester
Tomorrow there will be a House of Lords debate on euthanasia.
The churches issued this joint press release:
Nine leaders from six major British faith groups join together in unprecedented stand against assisted suicide and euthanasia
Richard Harries wrote this column in the Observer today: To be or not to be? It’s not our choice
The BBC Sunday programme lead with a related story:
Assisted Dying Listen here with Real Audio (8 minutes)
The House of Lords will debate a Select Committee report on assisted dying tomorrow. There is no doubt where the major faiths stand on the issue. They are opposed. On Friday nine leaders from six major British faith groups, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, warned against any changes in the present law on assisted dying and euthanasia. The difference between the two is that euthanasia occurs when an outsider takes action to end someone’s life for compassionate reasons, while in the case of assisted dying an individual is helped to take their own life.
The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote an article in the Mail on Sunday which you can read about
here (the actual article seems not to be online) and also here. There is however a report that Peer rethinks euthanasia Bill plans while the Independent reports ‘Do-it-yourself’ euthanasia clinic to open in Britain.
Earlier this year, the Bishop of St Albans spoke in the General Synod on this topic: you can read the full text of that speech here and the motion that was passed is here. The synod briefing paper can be downloaded (RTF) from here.
More recently, Bishop Herbert has criticised the British Medical Journal for publishing five articles (including an editorial) effectively in favour of euthanasia but only one article against it. See details here. An earlier article by the bishop on this topic can be found here.
He also wrote The chilling ‘therapeutic option’ for the Church Times in September.
2 CommentsAn article All-embracing partnership Act by Joshua Rozenberg in yesterday’s Telegraph discusses the Civil Partnership Act and previews a lecture to be given later this month on the subject. The article points out that:
As the distinguished family lawyer Stephen Cretney explains in his Clarendon Lectures, to be delivered in Oxford later this month and published by Oxford University Press, the new legislation does not require civil partners to be homosexual or indeed to have a sexual relationship of any kind. They do not even need to live together.
The benefits on offer under the Civil Partnership Act 2004 are available to pretty well any unrelated couple of the same sex aged 16 or over, provided neither of them is already married.
And it goes on to say:
Dr Cretney recognises that friends who simply share common interests may be deterred from registering as partners by the fear that their friends would wrongly assume that they were homosexual. But he points out that no less a body than the Bishops of the Church of England has explained that civil partnership is “not predicated on the intention to engage in a sexual relationship”.
On the difference between this and marriage, it notes that:
…there are significant differences between the two relationships, despite attempts by ministers to suggest otherwise. Unlike marriage, civil partnership law has no problem with promiscuity: although adultery coupled with intolerability opens the door to divorce, sexual infidelity does not provide a basis for dissolving a civil partnership. Similarly, although a marriage is voidable on the ground that either party is incapable of consummating it, there is nothing comparable in the Civil Partnership Act.
Another difference was designed to appease those who believe that “gay marriage” is against God’s law. Although two people of the opposite sex may choose to marry in a place of worship, civil partners have no such choice: the law says that “no religious service is to be used while the civil partnership registrar is officiating at the signing of a civil partnership document”.
The whole article is an excellent summary of the position.
Update
An earlier Guardian article mentioned that the Association of Registration and Celebratory Services in conjunction with the Society of Registration Officers has drafted A CEREMONY FOR CIVIL PARTNERSHIPS for optional use within those local authorities that choose to do so. It’s important to realise that individual local authorities have very considerable discretion in such matters, and also that wholly civil ceremonies not only for births, marriages, and deaths, but also for wedding anniversaries, adoptions, etc. is a fast-growing activity in the UK. This is the context in which this particular draft needs to be seen.
Update
Parts of the Guardian interview have also been published in Uganda, see New Vision under the headline Dr. Sentamu prepared to ordain women bishops.
The routine formal Church of England confirmation ceremony for its diocesan bishops got more attention than usual yesterday when the new Archbishop of York, John Sentamu underwent the process.
Stephen Bates in the Guardian actually got to talk to him beforehand and has an interview with him in From Uganda with love … Church of England’s new No 2 spells out his creed. Some sample quotes:
Dr Sentamu said: “Some of our disagreements are not Christian really … It seems to suggest that all the great evils of the world are being perpetrated by gay and lesbian people, which I cannot believe to be the case. What is wrong in the world is that people are sinful and alienate themselves from God and you do not have to be gay to do that. To suggest that to be gay equals evil, I find that quite unbelievable.
“Is somebody saying a gay and lesbian can’t live in Christ? What matters in the end to me is to do what my mother said to me as a little child: John, never point a finger at anybody because when you do three other fingers are pointing back at you. All of us are sinners, all of us have baggage. Why should my baggage as a heterosexual be more acceptable than the baggage of a gay person?”
Other newspaper reports:
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Black archbishop vows to speak out
Independent Ian Herbert Refugee who fled Amin is confirmed as archbishop
Other web reports:
Times Online Simon Freeman Church welcomes its first black archbishop
BBC First black Archbishop confirmed
Pictures and an explanation for those not familiar with the process, at ACNS here.
The new archbishop has also been appointed to the Privy Council. Further explanation here.
14 CommentsWe haven’t reported on this topic since July.
Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph had a story today about one possible compromise, Williams may give up consecration role over women.
This suggests that traditionalists might accept something less than a “third province solution” if the archbishop did not himself consecrate women bishops (something like the custom in London whereby the diocesan bishop hasn’t for some years now ordained any women (or men) priests personally).
The story doesn’t explain how this would work in the Northern Province: presumably the Archbishop of York would have to take some similar action there. And it would seem unlikely that this solution would work if either archbishop was herself female.
The September issue of New Directions had an article by the Bishop of Guildford, who is chairing the working group producing specific recommendations for the synod to consider: Going forward:
What provision should be made for those who cannot recognize women bishops? The Rt Rev. Christopher Hill, the Bishop of Guildford, bears the responsibility for discerning the possible answer, and here gives a personal view of the issues involved.
The reactions of the flying bishops to the synod vote in July can be found on the Forward in Faith website: Beverley, Ebbsfleet, Richborough, and also Fulham.
30 CommentsAnglican Mainstream has today issued a further response, Letter to English House of Bishops.
Members of the public – apparently without restriction – are invited to sign it too. Although addressed “Dear Bishops”, the AM front page says:
Anglican Mainstream has issued a letter to all Bishops, Archdeacons and Deans of the Church of England, calling on them to rethink their statement on and response to UK Civil Partnerships. The letter calls on the Bishops to “publicly, courageously and consistently hold out to society the teaching of the Bible and the Church and the implications of it for holiness of life”.
(It will not escape the bishops’ notice that, of the original signatories, one has resigned his high office in the Church of England and is shortly to join a presbyterian body in the USA, and one of them is a clergy member of another Anglican province.)
This new statement of 19 September should not be confused with the previous statement of 6 August, here, or the one of 13 June, here.
21 Comments
0 CommentsIt’s election time within the Church of England. The members of the General Synod, the church’s legislative assembly, are up for re-election. Bishops have guaranteed seats but for other clergy and lay people hoping to sit in the new Synod, now is the time to write election speeches and canvas for votes. Over its next five year term, the Synod faces crucial decisions – not least on whether to allow women to become bishops. This issue above all others has led to fierce campaigning across the Church, as Christopher Landau reports.
Church Society has issued a press release.
A recent meeting of the Council of Church Society unanimously condemned the Pastoral Statement on Civil Partnerships issued by the House of Bishops over the summer.
To read the full text follow this link
To get more background on the CS view of CPs, read this page.
0 CommentsA working group of the House of Bishops has published a 100-page report under the title Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11.
The working group, set up in October 2004, consisted of: The Rt Revd Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford (Chair); The Rt Revd Colin Bennetts, Bishop of Coventry; The Rt Revd Peter Selby, Bishop of Worcester; The Rt Revd Peter Price, Bishop of Bath and Wells.
This report is available only as a PDF file and can be found here.
No doubt a link to this will eventually appear here.
Update it now is included on that page: scroll down to “Terrorism”; the page also includes an email address to which comments can be sent, and details of how to obtain a paper copy of the full report.
A press release has been issued about it, see here
Preview comment:
Observer Richard Harries How the Church can tackle terrorism
Press reports about it:
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Bishops suggest apologising to Muslim leaders for Iraq war
Guardian Stephen Bates CofE bishops criticise US over foreign policy and war on terror
The Times Ruth Gledhill Bishops want to apologise for Iraq war
BBC Bishops suggest apology for war
The evangelical Centre Group Fulcrum has published a very measured response to the bishops’ Pastoral Statement:
Fulcrum Response to the Bishops’ Statement on the Civil Partnership Act.
Andrew Goddard’s earlier paper, a response to the Act itself, published before the bishops document was available, is here.
1 CommentUpdated Saturday
Another item added to the CofE website can be found here. It’s a comment by Grace Davie on the recently-published predictions (from others) of church attendance in the future.
See for example Churches ‘on road to doom if trends continue’. Or Bleak future predicted for declining churches.
Steven Croft also commented about this in the CEN.
—
A huge volume of new statistics has been published on the Church of England website.
Press Release: New statistics show the costs of church repairs.
Don’t be put off by this weird title, the statistics cover much more than building costs, as the following strap shows:
Parochial church attendance, membership and finance statistics together with statistics of licensed ministers for the Church of England
Warning: some of the pages contain graphical images which may not load in all browsers. If you encounter this problem, try using Internet Explorer instead.
1 Comment