The English General Synod is outdated and ineffective say two bishops, following the Bishop of Manchester’s revelation that the July Synod was incapable of properly exploring his report on women bishops.His comments come as the British Sunday Telegraph newspaper reports that a key decision of the July Synod is to be overturned by the House of Bishops.
During the fractious debate Synod voted to proceed with legislation to allow women bishops, but crucially they rejected any provisions for opponents. That led to angry responses from traditionalists as well as some bishops.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch (pictured), was responsible for the report at the centre of the debate on women bishops which divided the General Synod in July. Writing in Crux, the Manchester diocesan monthly, he said: “The ways of General Synod --- especially in these sort of debates --- do not easily allow for subtle exploration or diplomatic conclusion.”
In particular he pointed out that his report had asked the General Synod to consider what sort of Church it wanted to be. He said: There was little evidence during the debate that the question about the future nature of our Church … was being addressed or even understood.”
During the debate the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, asked for the discussion to be postponed as it was hurting the Church at a crucial time. He has welcomed the Bishop of Manchester’s words, and described General Synod as “a blunt instrument.”
He criticised the Church’s decision-making structure: “We are now working as five separate bodies and we simply can’t afford that. In good times you can simply trundle along and it doesn’t matter, but when you’ve got difficult contentious issues, it’s absolutely vital that we work together as one body and we’ve just not been doing it.
“Obviously we have to have participatory involvement at all levels of life in the Church, but we have to be able to do it better than this. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s been quite right to stress that we need to think not just about what we decide, but how we decide.”
The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, has agreed that the relationship between Synod and the episcopacy needs to be clarified. He said: “Synodical government served us well in the early days but it’s been a kind of juggernaut. I think it’s got totally out of control.”
Bishop Reade spoke against the Synod becoming parliamentary with two competing sides: “Ideally I think the House of Bishops should be there, and we should be listening to the debate, and we should go away and make the decisions.”
He said the clergy and laity should vote, but that it should simply be used as information for the bishops. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had also spoken in July against using General Synod as a parliament, emphasising that the Church was managed by synod, rather than governed by it.
The Archbishop’s speech came during a debate on the last day of Synod, on a motion asking the House of Bishops to describe and explore the relationships between the church’s leading bodies. The motion was carried, and the House of Bishops will be meeting for the first time since then on October 6-7.
The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Michael Perham, defended the vote on women bishops as having proceeded with care and sensitivity. He said: “I think if I was starting from scratch I wouldn’t design Church of England decision-making on the basis of the present kind of Synod.
“Having said that, it’s what we’ve got and I believe we can work within that framework, because to dismantle it and start again would be a very major activity which would involve us in turning in on administrative issues rather than getting on with our missions.”
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the House of Bishops next week will discuss plans that would mean diocesan bishops losing their authority over the male traditionalist clergy. They would be told they must delegate powers to flying bishops chosen by the archbishops of Canterbury and York.
Significantly, the new bishops would not be a temporary solution, but would have a legal status as the provision is included in the measure that will ultimately change the law to allow women to become bishops.
Canon Jane Shaw, Dean of Divinity at New College, Oxford described the proposals as ludicrous and a betrayal of Synod's earlier vote. "If they enshrine in law legislation that puts flying bishops in place they'll be going against the will of the Synod," she said.
"This would be totally undemocratic and completely inappropriate."
She said it was "absurd" that a diocesan bishop shouldn't have oversight over all the parishes in their diocese.
One bishop said that he was "livid" that the Church seemed to have taken a step back in trying to appease traditionalists.
However, the Bishop of Fulham, a leading traditionalist, said that the proposal represented a significant improvement for Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals opposed to women bishops, but that it does not give them enough protection.
"I see this as an olive branch and it is certainly an improvement," said the Rt Rev John Broadhurst.
"The problem is that it still does not deliver what we want and so risks creating an impasse by failing to please either side.
"The proposal means that the debate is improving and we intend to stay and fight until the end."
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(Source: RI)