The Scottish Episcopal Church has responded to the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, which offer a revised definition of the Anglican Communion and suggest an enhanced role for the Primates’ Meeting together with a rotating presidency of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).
The press release is here, and the full text of the response (15 pages) is over here. The press release is copied in full below the fold.
1 CommentThe Rt Revd Malcolm Macnaughton, the Bishop of Repton, has announced his retirement. His last day in post will be 30 April 2026. Details are on the Derby diocesan website.
0 CommentsThe Revd Canon Dr Philip Hobday has been appointed as the next Dean of Wakefield; he is currently the sub-dean. Details are on the Leeds diocesan website and on the cathedral website. He will be installed on Saturday 07 March 2026.
36 CommentsThe Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, has announced that he will retire on his 70th birthday in August 2026. Details are on the diocesan website, and the bishop has written this letter to his diocese.
0 CommentsHelen King ViaMedia.News Safeguarding: How Can We “Learn Lessons” From the Read Sisters’ Case?
Mark Clavier Well-Tempered In Praise of Vicarages
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Tithing – A form of Manipulation?
54 CommentsWe reported earlier this month that the Governing Body of the Church in Wales was to meet to consider rule changes to allow the appointment of an interim Bishop of Bangor. The meeting took place yesterday and it agreed, with a slight amendment, the proposed changes. Details are in a press release, which is copied below.
Governing Body approves motion enabling interim Bishop of Bangor appointment
Provincial news Posted: 25 November 2025
The Governing Body of the Church in Wales met today to vote on proposed, time-limited constitutional changes that would allow an interim Bishop to be appointed to the Diocese of Bangor.
The motion, brought forward following the Electoral College’s decision not to proceed with an election at this stage, sought temporary amendments to the Constitution so that an experienced bishop may be invited to serve in Bangor for a period of one to two years. The interim appointment is intended to provide leadership and stability while work continues to strengthen governance, management, finance, and diocesan structures in preparation for a future episcopal election.
After an amendment which extended the maximum expiration date of the arrangements to a month following the first ordinary Governing Body meeting in 2028, members voted as follows:
With a majority in favour, the amended motion was passed.
The Governing Body’s approval now enables progress toward inviting an interim bishop to take up leadership in Bangor following the retirement of Bishop Andrew John at the end of August.
4 CommentsThe Church Mouse The Church of England attempts to define doctrine
23 CommentsCharlie Bell ViaMedia.News What Does it Mean to be Anglican in a Post-colonial Communion?
Ruth Grayson Surviving Church From Inertia to Overkill: A Surfeit of Safeguarding?
Michelle Burns Guarding The Flock Institutional Gaslighting in the Church: Rewriting the Stories of Those They Harmed
77 CommentsThe five bishops of the Church in Wales (Bangor being currently vacant) have today issued a pastoral letter in English and Welsh about the future of ceremonies for same-sex couples in the Church in Wales. In it they announce that they will introduce proposals:
to the Governing Body in April 2026 to make the authorisation of Blessings for Same Sex Couples permanent in the life of the Church, and to bring further proposals in April 2027 to allow the law of the state and of the Church to be changed to permit same sex marriage in our Churches.
Read the full (English) text of the letter below.
102 CommentsColin Coward Unadulterated Love
Mike Higton ViaMedia.News Cries of Suffering: A Response to ‘The Nature of Doctrine and the Living God’
Kat Campion-Spall ViaMedia.News Learning and Listening: Being Inclusive
Andrew Goddard Psephizo Can the PLF process be rescued?
Anon Surviving Church ‘Church of England Must Rapidly Accelerate Safeguarding Reforms’
57 CommentsThe Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, has announced he will retire next July. Details are on the diocesan website.
18 CommentsChurch of England measures passed by the General Synod have to be passed by both Houses of Parliament before they can receive Royal Assent. Before this they are reviewed by the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament. The Church Times has reported that two draft measures have not been well received by the committee.
Ecclesiastical Committee concerned about power dynamics in National Church Governance Measure
Concerns about the “huge power” enjoyed by the body set to replace the Archbishops’ Council were voiced in Parliament last week, during a meeting of the Ecclesiastical Committee.
Convened to consider the National Church Governance Measure, which is set to overhaul the National Church Institutions (NCIs), the Committee heard lengthy criticism by Danny Kruger, the MP for East Wiltshire who defected from the Conservatives to Reform last month. His concerns were focused on Church of England National Services (CENS), a new charity replacing the Archbishops’ Council, that will be responsible for distributing funds allocated by the Church Commissioners…
There is an uncorrected transcript of the Committee’s public meeting at which it took evidence from Church representatives here.
Clergy conduct batted back to General Synod
The Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament is expected to send the draft Clergy Conduct Measure (CCM) back to the General Synod for further consideration rather than approve its passage into law.
On Wednesday, the Church Times understood that the Measure had been rejected as “not expedient”, on the basis, primarily, of concerns about the default expectation in the CCM that tribunal hearings would be held in private.
The publication of a report confirming the parliamentary decision and setting out the reasons behind it is expected to be published next week…
The report has not yet been published; when it is it will be published here.
23 CommentsPeter Collier ViaMedia.News The House of Bishops on Clergy and Same Sex Marriage – Further Personal Reflections
13 CommentsAndrew Davison Church Times Analysis: Beware of doctrinal development?
Ruth Harley ViaMedia.News A Question of Conscience
David Runcorn Inclusive Evangelicals When the fruit is good don’t call it bad
Jonathan Clatworthy The point of it all The Word of God and the proposals of humans
23 CommentsThe Charity Commission has issued this press release:
Church of England charity must rapidly accelerate safeguarding reforms
The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England must rapidly accelerate the delivery of safeguarding improvements and close gaps in its approach to handling complaints, the charity regulator has warned.
The Charity Commission has set an expectation that the Archbishops’ Council should implement independent safeguarding structures as endorsed by the Church’s General Synod in February 2025 within 18 months from now – a year sooner than current plans indicate – and in the meantime, put robust interim measures in place to keep people safe.
The expectation is part of a Regulatory Action Plan issued to the Archbishops’ Council, a registered charity whose objects are to co-ordinate, promote, aid and further the work and mission of the Church of England. It follows the Commission engaging with the charity over whether its trustees are taking sufficient steps to address the safeguarding concerns and implement recommended changes raised in a number of safeguarding reviews…
….In summary, the Commission has found that:
- there is insufficient urgency and pace in implementing responses to past safeguarding reviews, and the current approach to doing so is fragmented and overly complex. For example, the Council’s current timescale of 2028 to pass the necessary legislation to implement independent safeguarding is too slow, representing a four year gap since the publication of the Jay Review
- currently the Church does not treat allegations of abuse from an adult not assessed to be “vulnerable” as a safeguarding allegation. The Commission’s guidance is clear that trustees must take reasonable steps to protect from harm all people who come into contact with their charity
To which the Church of England has responded:
Archbishops’ Council response to Charity Commission case review
24 CommentsReaders will recall that the see of Bangor has been vacant since Bishop Andrew John retired at the end of August. Since then the Church in Wales’s Electoral College has met twice to discuss the election of the next bishop and to invite potential candidates to respond to the vacancy. However the College has decided not to proceed with this, but instead has proposed that an experienced bishop should be invited to Bangor on an interim basis, for a period of one to two years to provide leadership and stability and to work with the diocese to strengthen leadership, finance, governance and management in advance of the election of a new diocesan bishop.
This does require some time-limited changes to the Constitution, and the Governing Body will meet on Tuesday 25 November 2025 to discuss these proposed changes.
More details are in this press release, and the agenda and papers for the meeting are here.
5 CommentsTrevor Thurston-Smith The Pensive Pilgrim Remembering past Remembrances
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love
Bosco Peters Liturgy King Charles, Pope Leo, and ‘full visible unity’
28 CommentsUpdated Wednesday morning
At ViaMedia.News Thomas Sharp has written
Update
Third paper by Thomas Sharp
74 CommentsUpdated twice on Saturday
At Together for the Church of England Charlie Baczyk-Bell has written
B2 or not B2: that isn’t the question
At Psephizo Andrew Goddard has written
Why has the LLF process reached the end of the line?
The latter article is a summary: the full version (21 pages) is available here.
Updates
At Shared Conversations, Helen King has written
‘We need the theology’: what has now been released, and does it answer the real questions?
At ViaMedia.News, Peter Collier has written
Where Does the House of Bishops Currently Stand on the Use of Prayers of Love and Faith? Some Reflections
The next meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod is in February 2026. A number of miscellaneous papers, listed below, have already been issued. They include reports from the Faith and Order Commission and legal advice relating to the Living in Love and Faith process.