Speech for General Synod Debate

Members of Synod, you will have noticed in your reading of the report from the Revision Committee that the report notes both a majority and a minority viewpoint within its membership.  Those in a minority on the Committee are, like me, members of the Church of England by conviction and seeking to remain such unless our church so alters its formulae that it becomes impossible for us so to do.  What is especially sad about the Revision Committee’s work has been the almost total failure for there to be any movement towards recognising common ground on which to journey forward.    The final report recognises that people holding to the minority viewpoint would probably no longer be able to remain members of the Church of England and yet still wants to proceed.  The steadfast belief of the majority remains that it is still right to press ahead on the basis of its conclusions.

All the difficulties consistently voiced by those often described as ‘traditional Catholics’ remain unresolved.  We have still failed to secure any movement on the basic issue of jurisdiction.  A priest acts on the authority of his bishop, a bishop suffragan on the authority of his diocesan.  It is difficult, to say the least, to see, therefore, how ‘traditionalist Catholics’ or, indeed, conservative Evangelicals could operate as alternates for those who they do not in conscience recognise to be bishops in the first place.  The report has singularly refused to reach out to us on this issue.

The difficulties no longer stop there.  The Revision Committee has savaged the Legislative Group’s original proposals.  There is no longer to be any guaranteed group of bishops acceptable to the present minority.  A parish with a female diocesan can request the ministry of a male bishop but no regard is to given to that bishop’s views or as to who has ordained him.  A parish can ask for a male incumbent.  It cannot insist, however, that its priest has been ordained by a male bishop.  That, I submit, results in discrimination by means of gender and not out of theological conviction.  It is the very impropriety we claim to be seeking to avoid.  Under the Revision Committee’s proposals a parish priest is free to invite whom he or she wishes to preside at the Eucharist.   Thus a parish given a male priest has then no legal recourse if that priest then chooses to invite female priests to preside at the Eucharist.  The viewpoint of the laity, carefully preserved in the legislation of 1992, is swept away at a stroke.

All this, the report tells us, is based on a desire to maintain the highest degree of communion.  That is surely to misuse the whole concept as it is understood both in the Eames Report and in other significant Anglican Communion documents.  The quest for the highest degree of communion stems from the recognition that, because of differing views on women’s ordination, there has to be both a degree of impaired communion and the consequential and necessary episcopal provision that stems from our ordained ministry being no longer interchangeable.  The Revision Committee, by contrast, seeks to obtain the highest degree of Communion by, in effect, gradually excommunicating more and more folk who cannot in conscience recognise the sacramental ministry offered to them.  I know that matters of sacramental assurance may not be familiar theological ground of some within this synod.  Please recognise that for ‘traditional Catholics’ at least, they belong to the life-blood of the Church.  To deny us this is to un-church us and belies any claim to have made adequate let alone generous provision for us.

There were some members of the Revision Committee who genuinely tried to reach across the differences between us and to see how a minority might be honourably provided for, not least recalling the continued assurances and encouragement given since the 1992 legislation.  Those coming from my position will be immensely grateful for their efforts.  Sadly, their efforts failed.  Synod members have consistently asked for legislation that both enables women to be admitted to the episcopate and also for gives generous and just provision for those opposed.  Unless Synod members are sure that they can substantially amend the legislation at revision stage then I regretfully suggest it would be far better to stop these particular proposals now by declining to take note of the report.

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