Downing Street has today announced the appointment of two Area Bishops for the newly created Diocese of West Yorkshire & the Dales. The diocesan bishop Nick Baines has the details: Two new bishops.
The Revd Dr Toby Howarth, currently Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and National Inter Religious Affairs Adviser for the Church of England will be the Bishop of Bradford.
The Revd Dr Jonathan Gibbs, currently Rector of Heswall in the Diocese of Chester, will be the first ever Bishop of Huddersfield. This is a new bishopric covering the local authority areas of Calderdale and Kirklees and is one of five areas in the diocese, which each have their own bishop.
Here are the official announcements from Downing Street.
Suffragan Bishop of Huddersfield: Jonathan Robert Gibbs
Suffragan Bishop of Bradford: Toby Matthew Howarth
The diocesan website has: New Bishops announced for West Yorkshire and Dales.
Asking out of genuine curiosity: how many bishops in the C of E are married to priests, as Rev. Howarth is?
Two more evangelical bishops!
Both married. To ladies.
In response to Jean and Roger (in so far as their comments merit a response): Hallelujah!
Will future bishops in the C. of E. be required to wear moustaches? Or will that episcopal accoutrement be disallowed after the acceptance of women bishops?
Jean and Roger should take heart..all these bishops will ordain women and the evangelical reformed lobby will not care much for them. Here is an interesting and quite shocking specification for the promised evangelical conservative bishop…it should concern all you liberals…
http://www.virtueonline.org/person-spec-conservative-evangelical-church-england-bishop
The original of that spec. was at
http://cranmercurate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/person-spec-for-conservative.html
though without the lovely graphic:-)
When Robert sent me this spec earlier this week I thought it was him making up some outrageous mocking version of a Reform statement ……
At that time, I thought it rather crude and not in the best of taste, even if I smiled just a little.
Now I find it is real?
Surely this is still a joke?
Please, somebody tell me! This is just a bad joke ….
The comments on Julian Mann’s blog are equally priceless. I read his piece as his own pitch for the purple, but I’m surprised he didn’t include refusal to wear mediaeval vestments in his list.
Fr Ron’s post reminds me of an acid comment made by an Oxford tutor when the appointment of a distinctly conservative evangelical diocesan bishop was announced. “He was very low church, but when they made him a bishop he shaved off his moustache and became a Friend of Pusey House”
Two good appointments, but it must be regarded as disappointing for the new super Diocese that the prospect of it having a woman bishop remains a distant one. It would have been open for its diocesan to wait, although it is easy to see that the need to get on and complete the episcopal team was regarded as a priority. The average age of the new team is just short of 57 years, with the oldest being 64 at the end of 2014 (Ripon) and the youngest being 52 at the end of 2014 (Bradford). Translations notwithstanding, it could therefore… Read more »
Anthony, how would that work then, if West Yorkshire and the Dales was to have had the first woman bishop when the new Wakefield (formerly Pontefract) is currently one of the few remaining Traditionalist bishops? Doesn’t sound to me like a good recipe for future collegiality, unless, of course, Leeds was to introduce something similar to the arrangement they have in London. How strong nowadays is what used to be known as the “”Barnsley Biretta Belt”, I wonder?
Father David, would not an episcopal team which reflected diversity by containing both a woman and a traditionalist within it be a helpful place to model and discover what that could mean? The House of Bishops itself is quite large; within a smaller team the relationships and practical working out of the issues would need to be worked at well.
“Two more evangelical bishops” quips Jean Mayland (complete with explanation mark). Having allowed yet another illiberal ‘liberal’ reaction time to settle, I wonder if Jean would now agree that both bishops bring a combination of strategic professionalism, sustained experience matched by intellectual rigour, and provide Nick Baines with two episcopal colleagues of the quality he badly needs if he is going to make headway in shaking-up and re-shaping quite a bit of what he has inherited?
Would it not be a good idea to delay the selection of both diocesan and suffragan bishops until the first women have been consecrated? This might then ensure a more equitable episcopate – than might otherwise have been established beforehand? Or is there a plan to get in early?
I wrote to ++Cantuar and ++Ebor on the subject of what to do in these now intervening three months between Final Approval and Promulgation, suggesting a moratorium on fresh suffragan appointments, given that the diocesan bishop controls the timetable. I have also strongly encouraged my own bishop to wait until both female and male candidates can be considered for +Hertford, although he is not bound to do so on my say so! The abps were hardly likely to agree to a moratorium, as the needs of each diocese are different. However, the closer we get to November the less credible… Read more »
I don’t know if confidentiality precludes this or not, Anthony; but the informed gossip in the hallowed halls of Church House, Westminster, (from sources close to the Wash House) is that Southwell & Nottingham and St Eds and Ips are being “reserved” as the first Diocesan Sees for women as they are considered ‘easy’ dioceses to manage and there is a determination from ‘the top’ that the first female episcopates are a success. I’ve already had a flutter at William Hill. See you in Barbados!
One delaying tactic for diocesan appintments would be for participants to disagree at CNC and thus need more time (see Hereford recently – though I do not know whether CNC disagreement was the reason for that delay)
Concerning the recent Hereford fiasco, this was discussed in the Guardian Diary column recently, though not by name, see http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/21/church-of-england-female-bishops-house-of-lords-diary There is a sense of marking time in the appointments process. One recent diocesan vacancy took several meetings to find a suitable male candidate – people dropping out, people falling ill, limited choice – and things got so fraught when the diocese’s representatives refused to accept the hierarchy’s favoured candidate that a senior churchman angrily refused the archbishop of Canterbury’s request that he should close the meeting with prayers. Not terribly Christian of him. I think it is safe to… Read more »
Such tittle-tattle and gossip Simon. Where do you get your information from when those on the CNC are sworn to absolute secrecy? I think that quite possibly Eds & Ips may well be the first diocese to be given a woman bishop considering the high proportion of women priests in that remote rural diocese and the fact that they already have a considerable woman Dean. I’m sure that the last bishop of that East Anglian diocese has the ear of the ABC serving, as he now does, as Bishop at Lambeth. Personally, as it is now inevitable, I think +Lucy… Read more »
My view on the position regarding current diocesan vacancies is my own. However, as a former central member of the CNC (albeit before interviewing was the norm) I think it would be odd to interview a woman candidate, vote on a nomination and then (assuming the preferred finalist candidate was a woman) have to wait until the law was changed before any announcement could be made. No doubt the lawyers have been asked to opine on this. Actually it only really concerns St Eds and Ips, as Southwell and Nottingham would have its second meeting (with the interviews) after it… Read more »
From the suffragans biogs it looks a very European leaning diocese (with Baines) they could probably have staff meetings in German!
No doubt on Ilkley Moor bar t’at.
The so-called “informed gossip” above concerning St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, on the one hand and Southwell and Nottingham on the other, cannot be wholly accurate. It would be clearly illegal to “reserve” any vacancy, episcopal or otherwise, on the grounds of gender. The most that can be done in general is the procedure described in this news report: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10984385/Church-of-England-to-use-positive-discrimination-to-boost-women-bishops.html However, there is a specific question about whether the timing of the CNC meetings for these two dioceses permits women candidates to be considered, and it would be helpful to have this point clarified by the CofE officially. The meeting dates… Read more »
The legal underpinnings of the CNC are somewhat flimsy and are contained in SO 122 of the Standing Orders of the General Synod. During my time, as a matter of practice (not part of the SOs), each member of the CNC was permitted to mandate one name. In addition SO 122(5)(f) states that the CNC shall not proceed to a decision to select a name for submission to the Prime Minister unless the person presiding at the meeting is satisfied that the discussions held by the Commission have paid due regard to the views of the diocesan members and to… Read more »
“the informed gossip in the hallowed halls of Church House, Westminster, (from sources close to the Wash House) is that Southwell & Nottingham and St Eds and Ips are being “reserved” as the first Diocesan Sees for women as they are considered ‘easy’ dioceses to manage” James A.
ROTFLMAO
Decorum please on the TA site. Shall we just say ROTFLMHO?
My ROTFLMAO, your comment takes me back in time. It’s a long time since I heard about an “easy” diocese. I think I last heard the phrase “a bishopric of ease” when Cyril Garbett was translated from Southwark to Winchester having worn himself ragged in South London. He became Bishop of Winchester in order to recharge his batteries and regain his strength before moving North for his mighty ministry as Archbishop of York.
Southwell & Nottingham “easy to manage”? Try telling Richard Inwood.
So, if Richard Inwood in his acting capacity is finding Southwell & Nottingham far from easy, that just leaves Eds & Ips as the most likely diocese to receive the first diocesan woman bishop. Although there are plenty of current diocesan bishops only too willing to get to the winning post first by appointing a female suffragan thus beating sleepy Suffolk in the race to be number one.
ROTFLMAO or ROTFLMHO regardless. My sources are very well placed and while Simon’s point about ‘reservation’ of a See being illegal is quite correct, it doesn’t mean it cannot happen under one ruse or another. There is ‘method in the madness’ of Richard Inwood’s 15-month stint at Southwell and Nottingham; and, as has been pointed out in relation to Hereford, a lack of agreement at St Edmundsbury can easily be employed to require a further, post-November Synod CNC meeting. When I post here after the appointments to these two dioceses are announced, I’ll let you know what my winnings are… Read more »
What on earth does ROTFLMAO or ROTFLMHO stand for? Is it something similar to SWALK or even KOARWIGH? I think, for those not in on the know, we should be told!
James A “good point, well made” re possible failure to agree on a suitable candidate for Ebs and Ips (similar to the Hereford ploy) could well be used so that the Church of England is Suffolk is the first diocese to be given a woman bishop. I’m off now post haste to Joe Coral’s emporium to lay down a shilling wager.
ROTFLMHO = Rolling on the floor laughing my head off. The A-version is left as an exercise for the reader.
Thank you for that clarification, Simon, I’d never have worked that out by myself unaided. Sometimes I feel as the the world is passing me by.
LOL,
Fr. D