In it I have made some points which are, I think, relevant to the current debate.
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Sir
I am sorry not to have been
able to reply earlier to April Alexander’s comments two weeks ago
regarding my previous letter in which I was responding to the
claims by a leading member of the Group for Rescinding
the Act of Synod that ‘no promises have been broken’ regarding the
ordination of women and, as
a corollary, that the proposed legislation regarding women bishops
will actually be better than
what is currently in place because it is stronger.
My essential point was that no
one who accepts these arguments can really have understood the
position of those against whom they are arrayed. To have someone
who has campaigned against
the Act of Synod, which a former Archbishop told a member of
parliament was intended to be
permanent, now tell me that ‘no promises have been broken’ takes
the biscuit, to put it mildly. To be
told that the new proposals are a better version of what the
present legislation actually intends and provides is simply
untrue.
One of the difficulties is that
we have now gone past the stage of listening and the mood is one
of simply wanting to
‘get it over’. My bet would be that very few people voting in
diocesan synods have much idea of
what the Act of Synod said or how it has worked, and not much
better idea of what the new
legislation will mean and why it is unacceptable. But neither, in
all honest, do they much care.
A key point of contention, for
example, is that according to proponents of the new legislation
the authority of
a diocesan bishop must be maintained absolutely. To breach this,
we are told, would be to create a new kind
of bishop. Yet what seems to be forgotten is that the 1993 Act of Synod allowed either Archbishop to
ordain, license and institute female clergy in another diocese not
by ‘delegated’ authority but “in
pursuance of his metropolitical jurisdiction”(sections 11.1,2).
The only proviso was that the
bishop of the diocese did not object and had not made a
declaration preventing this under section 2 of the Measure.
Why would it be so impossible
to have such a similar provision carried over into the new
legislation for those who
cannot accept women bishops? If it was not in principle a breach
of episcopal authority then, why would it be now?
Not only do the arguments about
the new legislation seem to be flawed and ad hoc, the
legislation is manifestly uneven and ill-conceived in what it
requires from church members.
Under the proposals, for
example, a PCC in a multi-parish benefice will be able to overturn
existing
Resolutions A and B taken by another PCC in the same benefice (see
Schedule 1). To make
matters worse, the proposed legislation does not cover what
happens in multi-parish benefices
where opinion continues to be divided after the introduction of
the new legislation. What if one
parish does want a woman priest and the other does not? In answer
to a question on this, I was told, "It will presumably be covered
in the Code of Practice." But what kind of law favours one church
member’s honoured convictions against another?
Or again, parishes who opt for
a male bishop will have to review their decision every five years
(section 3:13). But if we are genuinely still in a ‘period of
reception’ (which as our own diocesan
bishop in Chelmsford reminded us recently means admitting any of
us may be wrong), should not
parishes who have not so petitioned have to review their
position every five years?
The proposed legislation will
introduce two classes of Anglican — the central and the legally
marginalized. That may be what the Synods want, but please do not
tell me it is what I should
cheerfully accept.
John RichardsonPlease give a full name and location when posting. Comments without this information may be deleted. Recommend:
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