WATCH (London) Invitation
Preparing for Elections
Everyone is welcome to St James’s Church Piccadilly (nearest underground Piccadilly Station, Piccadilly Line or Green Park Station, Victoria and Jubilee Lines) on Wednesday 17 April 2013 from 6.45pm – 9.15pm
This event will provide an opportunity for us to prepare for the forthcoming elections to Deanery Synods now and in 2014 at which members vote for those standing for General Synod.
It is crucial we are prepared for this as soon as possible so that the expressed wishes of those in the Church who support Women Bishops can be properly represented.
Revd Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James’s, Piccadilly will give a key-note address.
The Revd Stephen France, Rector of Christ Church Brondesbury in the London Diocese will take us step by step through the synodical processes to secure a General Synod lay membership which represents far more accurately than the present House of Laity the overwhelming desire of church people to welcome women as bishops.
Pamphlets giving clear guidance will be provided at the meeting for distribution in your parishes. Individuals who have been closely involved in Synod’s various efforts to achieve women in the episcopate, members of General Synod past and present and from the National WATCH committee will be on hand to hear your views and experiences.
There will be time for questions and comments. We will end with Compline.
Light refreshments will be available.
Just one question, please. What if the opponents of woman bishops win at the next synodal selections, “win” in the sense of increasing their numbers, and hence strength, in the House of Laity?
Could/will the pamphlets mentioned above be made available online?
It all smacks of desperation if you ask me. Why can’t WATCH just keep their noses out until Synod has deliberated in July? And do they not for one minute imagine that similar machinations might be afoot elsewhere if there is delay? Ridiculous!
William Tighe, thank you for your salutary warning. It will be relatively easy for hardline opponents in the House of Laity to muster enough votes to block the process again, although not now in the other two Houses.
You ask what will the consequences be if that happens?
There’ll be a lot of anger but the matter will just keep coming back again and again until it is resolved in favour of women bishops as that is clearly and permanently the mind of the Church.
Oppression is about power. The church has wielded oppressive power for a very long time in a variety of ways. There are only 2 ways in which it gives it up: a. when it truly and deeply listens to the people they are oppressing and their Witnesses; or, b. by the exercise of power to overcome the power of the oppressors. A. may be ideal for the church, but it looks to me like CoE’s polity is not particularly open to the listening I described. That only leaves people with option B. Clearly, the Synod that met last November did… Read more »
I don’t know what evidence Concerned Anglican has for saying that it will be relatively easy for hardline opponents in the House of Laity to muster enough votes to block the process again. There are six (or so) key dioceses, the so-called swing dioceses. Simply by increasing the turnout in most dioceses will ensure a more representative House of Laity. The last one issue election was in 1990, when the conservatives failed to pack the Synod to vote against women priests. As to Benedict, there will hopefully be a well-worked new package in time for the 2015 elections for the… Read more »
Benedict, we are a campaigning group like FinF or REFORM. What we all do is, er, campaign….
Anthony Archer ought to know better: it is the APCMs in 2014 (not the PCCs) that will elect the lay representatives to serve on deanery synods for the 3 years 1 June 2014 to 31 May 2017, and thus form the electorate for the General Synod election in 2015. All those (and only those) on the church electoral roll are entitled to attend and vote at their parish’s APCM. So it is vital to ensure (i) that those entitled to enrol do so now, or at the latest during the 2014 roll revision period, and (ii) to encourage those on… Read more »
I’m afraid that Benedict is way behind the pulse of the Church of England’s desire for Women Bishops – as clearly indicated by the majority of Diocesan Synods’ outcomes on this issue. Refractory opposition to Women as Clergy or Bishops in the Church of England will do no-one any good. If the General Synod indicates that there is no legitimate canonical reason for withholding the acceptance of a call to Women in the Church to become Bishops (it has already ordained Women as priests) – then who, in the Church, should be gifted with the continuation of a right to… Read more »
Is WATCH taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut? All we traditionalists want is proper provision then you can have your women bishops. There is no need to gerrymander the election process to achieve your aims and objectives.
Jill: sorry to be picky but… 1. this meeting is organised by the London diocese branch of WATCH and not WATCH as a national organisation – the politics of London diocese are different from any other diocese! Nevertheless, they have opened up the meeting to people from other dioceses. 2. Please stop hijacking the word ‘traditionalist’ – there are many who support the ordination of women who might fairly want to be described as traditionalist – eg they value certain styles of worship, they accept certain expressions of doctrine. 3. Plus those who support the ordination of women believe this… Read more »
A little disingenuous of Jill Armstead to say that all traditionalists want is proper provision, as this is an argument that they can hide behind sine die, depending on how you define ‘proper provision.’ Once they had made clear that ‘any male bishop will not do’ the scope for an agreed provision narrowed substantially. I hope a way forward will be found in advance of the 2015 Synod elections, but if not then the traditionalists may live to regret not giving Final Approval to the Measure in November. There can be no gerrymandering of diocesan boundaries, but every scope for… Read more »
“All we traditionalists want is proper provision then you can have your women bishops” – Jill Armstead – Is your ‘proper provision’ an attempt to divide the Church on its canonical decision to include women in the House of Bishops? If so, that road leads to a schismatic double-mindedness about Church Order – something that ‘traditionalists’ used to treasure. If the Church of England decides that women are canonically acceptable as Bishops in the Church, how can any participating member of the Church of England deny this status to women bishops? There is an alternative – that is to join… Read more »
Have I understood this right? When FiF, Reform and others run a very well organised and successful campaign to recruit to synod people with their convictions and so boost their share of the vote that is legitimate and simply a concern to seek ‘proper provision’.
When WATCH, and others, start organising the same this ‘smacks of desperation’, and is denounced here as ‘machinations’, ‘gerrymandering’ and sticking noses into a process that should apparently be allowed to run without any such manipulation or interference.
Charles: Perhaps I ought to have said traditional Anglo-Catholic and yes, the ‘you’ was rather tactless. I am quite happy to see women priests and bishops in the C of E – the great thing about the C of E is its acceptance of all-comers: so please – just provide proper provision for us: we want to stay together too.
So what is proper provision Jill? I hear these words so often, but have no idea what they might mean in practice. In 10-20 years there will be women bishops who may well be in a position to be considered for ABC or ABY: how would that affect your idea of proper provision?
Sadly there were, in the last elections to General Synod, a number of people who said that they supported the ministry of women, but failed to say that this did not include the ordained ministry of women. Some of those General Synod members who say that they support the ordained and consecrated ministry of women in principle have voted against almost every attempt to make that possible. We cannot afford to have another election in which the electorate is politically naive – the church will collapse in on itself. I think it is very clear that the CofE as a… Read more »