The Church of England has issued the press release below about papers for next month’s meeting of General Synod.
See my previous article for my list of papers.
General Synod papers released
19/01/2018
People with Down’s Syndrome should be welcomed, celebrated and treated with dignity and respect, members of the Church of England’s General Synod will hear next month.
A motion affirming the dignity and humanity of people born with Down’s Syndrome is to be discussed by the General Synod at its February sessions in London. It comes as a new form of prenatal screening, Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), is set to be rolled out in the NHS to women deemed to be at ‘high-risk’ of having a child with Down’s syndrome.
The motion welcomes medical advances and calls for the Government and health professionals to ensure that women who have been told that their unborn child has Down’s Syndrome are given comprehensive, unbiased information on the condition.
A background paper, Valuing People with Down’s Syndrome, produced by the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council is among documents released today.
With the UK throwing away £13bn of food every year food waste is another social issue to be debated by the General Synod.
Other subjects on the agenda include a presentation on safeguarding, the development of new monastic communities, and proposals for bringing the Church of England and the Methodist Church into communion with one another and enabling interchangeability of ministries.
For the first time, the General Synod will welcome a group of representatives from other Anglican Communion provinces.
Archbishop Moon Hing of South East Asia, Archbishop Humphrey of Pakistan, Archbishop Thabo, from South Africa and Archbishop Winston Halapua, Bishop of Polynesia and Primate (Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia) will attend the February sessions.
The General Synod will meet at Church House Westminster from Thursday February 8 to Saturday February 10.
A full set of papers from the first circulation is available on the Church of England website.
If the “Mission and Ministry in Covenant” proposals were to go ahead in their current form, Methodist presbyters not ordained by bishops would be able to exercise a priestly ministry in the Church of England. The nature of the Resolutions passed by Forward in Faith parishes already indicates that they would not be able to accept the priestly ministry of ministers who have not been ordained by a bishop. Those parishes are assured that they “continue to be within the spectrum of teaching and tradition of the Anglican Communion,” and that “the Church of England remains committed to enabling them… Read more »
To a certain extent I understand and share RD’s concerns but I think the price of temporarily allowing methodist ministers whose ordination is irregular in Anglican terms to celebrate is modest in comparison with the assurance that future Methodists will be ordained in apostolic succession. For the time being I think it would be best to trust that God will look kindly on an attempt to right the schism that should not have occurred and that he will make good any shortcomings in sacraments sincerely celebrated. The united churches in India had to go through a similar, costly, transition process… Read more »
RD Anyone continuing to believe Prayer Book doctrine is beyond all doubt a faithful Anglican. Those believing or teaching differently could potentially be the ones unfaithful. This case differs from the lady bishop issue in that lady bishops are currently intended to be a permanent feature, whereas priests who have not been episcopally ordained are intended as no more than a temporary aberration, relatively easily avoided by those who wish to avoid them. The future is intended to be exclusively episcopally ordained priests, so no apparent need for long term safeguards. Having said that temporary arrangements have a habit of… Read more »
‘So maybe best not to trust the claim that unordained priests will be temporary, and assume it is a precedent for lay presidency generally.’ [Posted by: T Pott on Saturday, 20 January 2018 at 12:11pm GMT] That surely is a completely different issue. No-one regards Methodist presbyters as ‘lay’ men or women; I’d suggest that even hardline traditionalists who would not accept their ministry as equivalent to Anglican priests, would accept them as having been accorded a distinctive role within their own tradition. After all, Popes and RC bishops might theoretically regard Anglican priests and bishops as laypeople, but in… Read more »
@Mr Emmott – If the current position of the C of E is that only episcopally ordained priests can preside at holy communion, then opponents of lay presidency can argue against it on these grounds. I suppose though that once it is accepted otherwise then the argument against lay presidency can no longer be made from that particular principle. There would be precedent for non-episcopally ordained persons to preside at Communion, albeit, as you say, not “lay”.