The earlier Green Paper was reported here.
The subsequent consultation paper from the archbishops is here, and the General Synod document considered in February is here as an RTF file.
What this week’s White Paper (full document as PDF here) said on Church of England Appointments:
254. The Government proposed in The Governance of Britain that the Prime Minister’s role in ecclesiastical appointments in the Church of England should be significantly reduced.At present,he receives two names from the Crown Nominations Commission for appointment as new Diocesan Bishops. In future, he will ask for only one name which he will then forward to Her Majesty The Queen. The Government undertook to discuss with the Church any necessary consequential changes to procedures.This discussion also considered the role of the Prime Minister and of his Appointments Secretary in the appointments process for cathedral deans, where the Appointments Secretary was responsible for conducting the appointments process and making the final recommendations, and some other senior appointments in the Church.
255. Following an internal consultation exercise, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York put proposals to the meeting of the General Synod in February 2008. Synod approved the proposed modifications to the appointments process.They called for a continuing role for a senior civil servant at the heart of Government to help in ensuring that the wider needs of the church and of the community continued to be given adequate weight in the appointments process. However, they agreed that in future the decisive voice in all appointments would be that of the Church itself. In relation to diocesan bishops, the Crown Nominations Commission would continue itself to select two names – a preferred name and a reserve – but would forward to the Prime Minister only the preferred name. In relation to appointments to Cathedral Deaneries, there would in future be a selection panel chaired by a layperson selected by the archbishop of the province after consultation with the diocesan bishop and the proposed Crown appointments adviser. It was proposed that the Government would continue to provide administrative support for the process of appointments to Crown parochial livings (in the same way as, for example, where a bishop has the right of presentation the church authorities would provide support to the parish in the process). The Government is discussing with the Church future long-term arrangements within government in the light of the Synod’s decisions.
256. The changes to the appointments processes for Diocesan Bishops and Cathedral Deans are internal Church procedures and require no legislation. The Church will itself legislate by Measure for a number of consequential changes. These are to remove the requirement for two names to be forwarded for appointment to Suffragan Bishoprics (a requirement of a 1534 Act); to bring crown parochial appointments into line with all others by allowing the parish representatives a right of veto; and to remove the right of the Crown to appoint to certain positions which have become vacant through the preferment of the incumbent to a diocesan bishopric, or where there is a vacancy in the episcopal see which would normally have the right of appointment.
In connection with the above, the Lord Chancellor said this in the House of Commons:
Appointments to the Church of England: the Government remain committed to the establishment of the Church of England, and greatly value the role played by the church in our national life. Appointments to senior church positions will continue to be made by Her Majesty the Queen, who should continue to be advised on the exercise of her powers of appointment by one of her Ministers, who will usually be the Prime Minister. We are very grateful to the General Synod for its proposals on how new appointments procedures should work and the Government are discussing with the church future long-term arrangements.
How about letting the faithful participate by means of a diocesan synod where the clerical and lay houses together may prayerfully select their own bishops.
Just a thought.
“the clerical and lay houses together may prayerfully select their own bishops.”
Demned colonial!
Ford – I think that Malcolm, like me, is a ‘blessed Celt’ rather than a ‘demned colonial’ – the Anglican provinces of Wales, Scotland and Ireland all elect their own bishops and archbishops.
I am a blessed Celt (both Irish and Scots), but I am also a demned colonial. As in says on my blogger profile, “An Anglican priest on the Canadian prairie.”
Come by for a visit and see how bunnyhugs (that’s the proper name for what the rest of the world call hoodies) have become incorporated in Easter tradition.
Um, sarcasm! I too am a demned colonial (or being a Newfoundlander, something of an illegitimate child of the Celts). We elect our bishops, and I really have my issues with the British way of allowing the government to appoint bishops. But then I’m an Anglo-catholic, a movement that took root in attempts to oppose the government’s attempts to rearrange dioceses.
Fr Malcolm wrote: “How about letting the faithful participate by means of a diocesan synod where the clerical and lay houses together may prayerfully select their own bishops.” Hmmmm. That process has produced (in no particular order) Schofield, Bennison, Jefferts Schori, Robinson, Duncan, Iker, all of whom are universally accepted and loved by every contributor to TA, irrespective of their theological position. (I suspect it has also produced Akinola, Venables….) I’m no great fan of the C of E’s method, but at least it has permitted the appointment of the very protty Suffragan Bishop of Lewis (alleged here to refuse… Read more »
Ford, you mean you can actually find your Sanctus Bells amidst the piles of snow? I suspect you have to use plenty of incense to warm that place up!!!!
The one place I was beset in ice in salt water….off of St. John’s.
Come down here to the Ohio country, a little Morning Prayer with Anglican chanted canticles will surely warm you up!!!
And don’t forget, Alan, the likes of Michael Ramsey (too academic), Tom Wright (ditto), and Rowan Williams (ditto) would have not been appointed hadn’t it been for this process.
Incidentally, what I prefer is the kind of electoral college that Wales, Scotland (but the electoral college is the diocesan synod), and Ireland has–where everything is outside the public limelight as much as possible.
One could create quite a list of feckless, time-serving Sir Humphrey Applebies out of the assorted Prime Ministerial gifts in the Church of England.
For all the weaknesses of having synodical elections, I’ll take it in a sinch over having bishops appointed by some politician whose ecclesiastical affiliation may well be nominal – or elsewhere.
Draw lots. Roll the dice. Anything is better than having secular politicians doing it.
Malcolm:
You do understand, I hope, that in England, even before the changes referenced here are made, politicians do not now choose bishops. Rather, the church chooses bishops via an “electoral college” process, and the chosen names are then sent to the Prime Minister for the Queen’s approval. It has been many decades since the last time a secular politician chose a bishop.
And, by the way, Sir Humphrey Appleby, of blessed memory, was never a politician, much less a Prime Minister. He was a Civil Servant. Would that any politician had any of his gifts!
The byzantine and labrynthian machinations of the Crown Appointments Commission notwithstanding, it is still a process driven by politics – and not necessarily ecclesiastical.
I was not suggesting Sir Humphrey was a politician, but rather that the episcopal candidates selected under the present process are like as not to be ecclesiastical Sir Humphreys – self-seeking timeservers whose duty above all is the preservation of the political status quo, both secular and ecclesiastical.
Malcolm
If only.
If any of the current bishops of the Church of England had a tenth of the skills of a Sir Humphrey, I for one would be delighted.
Why is the English method of bishop selection more likely than the Canadian (or any other) one to produce self-seeking timeservers?
And how on earth do you go further and link the CofE episcopal process of selection to secular politics in Britain?
By the way, the body to which you refer was renamed the Crown Nominations Commission back in 2003.
Because, Simon, the process still allows for secular politics to interfere. The PM’s office is still represented in the initial process. The nominations still proceed through the PM and the PM still has the effective capacity to reject nominees not to his liking – however seldom he may use it. While no system can completely eliminate the possibility of self-seeking timeservers, Lincoln was correct about how effectively people can be fooled. Ineffective bishops are inevitable in any system where humans are involved. But self-seeking time servers generally have a tough time hiding that quality which electors generally find unattractive. But… Read more »
Malcolm If you will refer to the General Synod debate of February concerning Crown Appointments, you will see that synod members on all sides desperately wanted to avoid losing the external, independent, unbiased, expertise that the PM’s Appointments Secretary has hitherto provided. This was being discussed in the context of choosing Deans rather than Bishops, but it is nevertheless pertinent. What the PMAS has provided is in practice nothing like what you imagine. I’ll repeat my point: the PMAS is a Civil Servant, not a Political appointment. Perhaps this distinction is not meaningful in Canada? The responses to the consultation… Read more »
Having been a public servant, I am quite clear on the distinction between public servants and politicians. However you cut it, the process still runs through the hands of a politician for the Prime Minister is ever thus. And, at the end of the day, the public servant serves his (albeit temporary) political master.
I certainly wouldn’t want to leave bishops to their own devises. I merely want the Church to choose the leadership of the Church. Synodical election, if I might plagiarize your former Prime Minister, is the worst system in the world except for all the others.