Thinking Anglicans

Suffragan Bishop of Repton

Press release from Number 10

Suffragan Bishop of Repton: Reverend Canon William Malcolm Macnaughton
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Canon William Malcolm Macnaughton to the Suffragan See of Repton.

Published 30 October 2020
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street

The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Canon William Malcolm Macnaughton MA MTh, Chief of Staff to the Archbishop of York in the diocese of York to the Suffragan See of Repton, in the diocese of Derby, in succession to the Right Reverend Janet Elizabeth McFarlane who resigned on 31st March 2020.

Malcolm was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge and trained for ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He served his title at St Andrew, Haughton Le Skerne, in the diocese of Durham and was ordained Priest in 1982.

In 1985, Malcolm was appointed Priest-in-Charge of All Saints, Newton Hall, in the diocese of Durham. In 1990, he moved to the diocese of London to be Team Vicar (and subsequently Vicar) of St John the Baptist, Hoxton. He also served as Area Dean of Hackney from 1994 to 1999. Malcolm was appointed Rector of Hambleden Valley in the diocese of Oxford in 2002 and became Area Dean of Wycombe in 2005.

In 2007, Malcolm took up his current role as Chief of Staff to the Archbishop of York.

There are more details on the Derby diocesan website.

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Dominic Barrington
Dominic Barrington
3 years ago

I note that the Derby website says that he will be ordained a bishop by the ABC. Does this need fact-checking, or are we seeing a quiet reversal of the consecration policy that appeared a few months ago?

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
Reply to  Dominic Barrington
3 years ago

From that source we should be able to rely on what it says. The statement (I have to say controversial statement) at the time of the consecrations in Lambeth Palace Chapel was concerned with (1) the then current Covid-19 ‘lockdown’ and (2) implications from the ‘Five Guiding Principles’. At the time most TA readers seemed to accept that the ‘new‘ procedure was to be treated as a permanent change. But, in his statement dated 15th July this year, the Archbishop explicitly used the word “normally” about those arrangements, clearly meaning that they were not invariable, and we know that the… Read more »

Simon Bravery
Simon Bravery
Reply to  Rowland Wateridge
3 years ago

“Normally “ could mean 51 0/0 of the time. I have puzzled over the requirement that a non resident of the parish must have “ habitually” attended a church for 6 months to be on the electoral roll. What if I habitually go once a year at Christmas?

David Lamming
David Lamming
Reply to  Simon Bravery
3 years ago

I made this very point in an article published in the Ecclesiastical Law Journal in 2006: The Church Electoral Roll: Some vagaries of the Church Representation Rules (2006) 8 Ecc LJ 438. I wrote (at p.443): “How often must a person attend church to be able to say that he has ‘habitually attended public worship in the parish during a period of six months prior to enrolment’? Once a week? Once a month? And if he is only a very occasional church attender but, when he does attend, attends that church ‘out of habit’, does that qualify?” I continued: “The… Read more »

T Pott
T Pott
Reply to  David Lamming
3 years ago

If the commitee concluded that the rule is exceptionally difficult to understand, would that not be a reason to replace it with a rule that is perfectly clear?

John Barton
John Barton
Reply to  Simon Bravery
3 years ago

‘Habitually for six months’ is also the requirement for church attendance by non-parishioners, in order to marry there. The House of Bishops advises that this means at least once a month, “unless prevented by illness etc”.

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
Reply to  Simon Bravery
3 years ago

I have only dealt with your first point in a separate post. You will see that I suggest that the matter should be raised at General Synod. Others better qualified have responded to your question.

Bill Broadhead
Bill Broadhead
3 years ago

In all honesty, does Derby need a Suffragan? Apart from confirmations and ordinations (which can be carried out by the Diocesan) what can a Suffragan do that an Archdeacon – or any other priest for that matter – can’t?

Paul Waddington
Paul Waddington
Reply to  Bill Broadhead
3 years ago

Perhaps, if a campaign is started to end the appointment of unnecessary suffragan bishops, the C of E will get around to setting up a commission to examine the matter in about three years time. This will have to set up a consultation process, that will take another two years. The results of the consultation will have to be analysed before a proposal can be made. There would be further consultation (another two years) before a decision could be made. Then one could expect a lapse of another two years before anything s done. All in all, something might happen… Read more »

Dominic Barrington
Dominic Barrington
Reply to  Paul Waddington
3 years ago

I think the prediction of a 20% decline in 12 years is – sadly – a very optimistic one.

Stanley Monkhouse
Reply to  Bill Broadhead
3 years ago

Good question, BB, in a not-very-big diocese (1 million total population in 990 square miles with 148 benefices) at a time when 30 stipendiary posts are going (so down to 100) and a deficit of 5 million planned. Nevertheless, a third archdeacon is mooted (for fresh expressions I think) as is the employment of a change manager. Can anyone explain how the K of G is advanced by more big knobs with titles and salaries but fewer workers at the sharp end? Here in Lichfield, about twice the size of Derby, there are three suffragans, a deficit of, I think,… Read more »

Graeme Buttery
Graeme Buttery
Reply to  Stanley Monkhouse
3 years ago

How is the K of G advanced by this? It isn’t. As for more archdeacons, deanery sized pastoral units et etc, they don’t work either. Look at Church in Wales. And while I am here, can anyone tell me what the h@@l assistant archdeacons are for?

Graeme Buttery

Simon Sarmiento
Reply to  Bill Broadhead
3 years ago

By the same logic, do we need Derby to be a separate diocese? It was created by separation from the (then) Southwell diocese in 1927.

Stanley Monkhouse
Reply to  Simon Sarmiento
3 years ago

We do not. Before Southwell it was Lichfield. In terms of “geopolitics” it should be split between Chester, Lichfield, Sheffield, Southwell, Leicester/Coventry/Brum (if they survive). Leicester is even smaller than Derby. Why it needs a suffragan, GOK. Mediaeval dioceses perhaps?

Fr. Dean Henley
Fr. Dean Henley
Reply to  Stanley Monkhouse
3 years ago

I’d like to suggest that clergy are appointed a cathedral canon whilst they are conveniently there being ordained a priest. On the third anniversary of their ordination as a deacon they could be made an archdeacon. Then after a further five years in orders they could be consecrated as a bishop. We already have way too many chiefs and they’re taking the Indians off the payroll as quickly as their change managers can complete the P45 formalities. Why not make everyone a chief so no one feels overlooked?

David Exham
David Exham
Reply to  Bill Broadhead
3 years ago

I think that Bill Broadhead, and to an extent Simon Sarmiento, are asking the wrong questions. To address Bill’s question, surely what we need to ask is whether a diocese like Derby needs four senior clerics, currently two bishops and two archdeacons. There is more to a suffragan bishop’s job than confirmations, and the question must be whether the diocesan and the archdeacons have a sufficiently light workload to pick up all the tasks that had been done by the suffragan if not replaced. I suspect the answer to that is a large ‘no’. There is no advantage in not… Read more »

Bill Broadhead
Bill Broadhead
Reply to  David Exham
3 years ago

You still don’t explain, David, why Derby actually needs a Suffragan when, for example, Hereford has decided it doesn’t. A similar question could be asked of Newcastle which didn’t have one for almost all of its history, until a few years ago. Chester (which is geographically more widespread than Derby) has done without a third suffragan for a couple of years, too. Similar questions might be asked of Bristol, Gloucester, Sheffield and Truro. Interesting that Canterbury, effectively, functions with just one full-time bishop, too. So why not Peterborough? But I agree there is a more general question about increasing the… Read more »

David Exham
David Exham
Reply to  Bill Broadhead
3 years ago

The simple answer to your question, Bill, apart from the one given by God ‘elp us all below, is that every other diocese in the C of E has at least one suffragan or area bishop, with the exception of Sodor and Man, so the C of E generally regards this as needed. So your question is not about Derby specifically, which is a very middle of the road diocese as far as most measures are concerned. Your question seems to be whether we need suffragan bishops at all. Most of the smaller dioceses, in which I include Derby and… Read more »

Simon Sarmiento
Reply to  David Exham
3 years ago

Portsmouth does not have a Suffragan.

David Exham
David Exham
Reply to  Simon Sarmiento
3 years ago

Thank you for this correction.

Bishop Michael Doe
Bishop Michael Doe
Reply to  Bill Broadhead
3 years ago

You question the Diocese of Bristol. I declare my interest, as the first Bishop of Swindon! But Suffragans are not just part of a Diocesan hierarchy or Head Office: many represent the Church in places some distance from the Diocesan centre and Cathedral. Just as parishes, whatever the changing forms of ministry and therefore the changing role of the Incumbent, still need “The Vicar”, as much for the wider community as for the church congregations, so do other conurbations apart from Cathedral Cities need such a representative person. Maybe what is happening in West Yorkshire, whatever the problems of transition,… Read more »

Stanley Monkhouse
Reply to  Bishop Michael Doe
3 years ago

So, Michael, how would you deal with the explosion of chiefs and the culling of Indians?

Last edited 3 years ago by Stanley Monkhouse
Bishop Michael Doe
Bishop Michael Doe
Reply to  Stanley Monkhouse
3 years ago

A few thoughts. I question what may be an assumption behind your division into Chiefs and Indians. A Bishop who uses his or her office to build bridges with other Faith Leaders, who addresses an important social issue on Local Radio, who publicly represents the Church in responding to a major incident like Grenfell, who travels to a partner diocese overseas to support the bishops there, is as much on the front-line as any parish priest. I also note that when things go wrong, as in Safeguarding, its the C’s not the I’s who get blamed! But on practicalities, whilst… Read more »

Anon
Anon
Reply to  Bishop Michael Doe
3 years ago

As a humble lay parishioner, but one who has seen many a restructuring and down-sizing in the corporate world it all feels depressingly familiar. Loss of front-line staff and retention or even expansion of senior leadership. Removing the ability to reverse the decline on the ground is not a good idea. The reality is that many of us down at the bottom are wondering why there appear to be so many chiefs when the number of indians is dwindling. The answer that there is the ” workload” or that the vast majority of dioceses do it (i.e. this is the… Read more »

Rowland Wateridge
Rowland Wateridge
3 years ago

It may be helpful to remind ourselves of some of what the Archbishop said in his announcement on 15th July: “These new arrangements are made in the light of the pandemic and in awareness of the sad reality that not all in the Church of England agree on issues of ordination, and yet all are committed to upholding the Five Guiding Principles. “We have agreed that the Metropolitan will normally ask another bishop to be the chief consecrator. Three bishops are required to consecrate a person as bishop. From now on the Archbishops will ask three bishops to lay on hands… Read more »

God 'elp us all
God 'elp us all
3 years ago

I guess it must be that prior to the resignation of the then Bishop of Repton in March (pre-Covid?) the Bishop of Derby and the Archbishop of the southern province with the assent of the diocesan synod decided that the post was vital and that the Dioceses Commission did not demur: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/Dioceses%20Commission%20-%20Episcopal%20Ministry%20and%20Suffragan%20Sees%20-%20Guidance%20on%20the%20Operation%20of%20%20Sections%2012%20and%2017%20of%20the%20Dioceses%2C%20Pastoral%20and%20Mission%20Measure%202007.pdf So what do contributors to TA know that those involved were unaware of? Perhaps the position of Chief of Staff to the Archbishop of York will not be filled, or may be furloughed or redundant- time to call in the consultants? Hopefully someone will be looking after these… Read more »

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