As I reported here the current legislation on Women in the Episcopate was sent to dioceses promptly after last month’s meeting of General Synod. The first diocesan synod votes were held a week ago, and so far nine dioceses have voted; all were in favour of the legislation.
I have compiled a table of the voting figures here which I will update as further votes take place.
I note that your table records that four bishops voted in favour in the Chelmsford diocese. I wonder how can this be seeing as Colchester is currently vacant so doesn’t that just leave three bishops – Chelmsford, Barking and Bradwell? Who is the Fourth Man?
From the votes so far, I calculate that the percentage in favour of the new legislative proposals is 88% in the Houses of Clergy (331 for, 37 against and 8 abstentions) and 86.1% in the Houses of Laity (340 for, 39 against and 16 abstentions.) Both figures are significantly higher than the percentage approving the previous draft Measure – the one that failed by a narrow margin to obtain the necessary two-thirds majority in the House of Laity of the General Synod at final approval stage in November 2012. While not counting chickens, this augurs well for the vote on… Read more »
Probably the Team Rector of Barking, who used to be Bishop of Botswana. Bishops other than those occupying sees in the Diocese can be part of the House of Bishops of the Diocese.
“86.1% in the Houses of Laity “ Which is interesting, as it shows just what an outlier the vote at the previous Synod was. It’s tempting, I suspect, to rely on the process being used now to quietly sweep aside the embarrassment caused last year (“well, we’ve fixed that”) but the unrepresentative nature of the house of laity remains. By its nature it’s going to be older, whiter, more middle-class and more conservative (and paradoxically extreme) than the congregations at large. That Minichiello Williams is a member, for example, is an example of the electoral process slewing away from the… Read more »
I’ve made some enquiries, and I can confirm that the fourth Chelmsford bishop is Trevor Mwamba, the former Bishop of Botswana. He is now a team rector in Barking and an assistant bishop in the diocese.
The information that +Trevor Mwamba is now an assistant bishop in Chelmsford diocese is interesting. Readers of this blog may be interested to read his perceptive analysis of the state of the church in Africa on issues of human sexuality, given as the keynote address to the conference of the Ecclesiastical Law Society at Liverpool in January 2007: “Out of Africa: an appraisal of the current position of the African church concerning homosexuality and same sex unions in the Anglican Communion and its future.” (The conference theme was the Windsor Report.)
Do we know which Wakefield bishop voted against?
Yes, the Bishop of Pontefract, Tony Robinson, who is a traditional catholic, and has always been opposed. So no surprise there.