From the Diocese of Southwark: Two new Area Bishops for Southwark Diocese.
6 CommentsDowning Street has announced this morning that the Rev Jonathan Clark has been appointed the 10th Bishop of Croydon and the Venerable Dr Michael Ipgrave OBE has been appointed the 12th Bishop of Woolwich. The Revd Jonathan Clark succeeds the Rt Rev Nick Baines who is now the 10th Bishop of Bradford and the Venerable Dr Michael Ipgrave OBE succeeds the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun who is now the 10th Bishop of Southwark. They will be consecrated in Southwark Cathedral on 21 March 2012…
The Archbishop of York has published this transcript of his interview with Martin Beckford of the Daily Telegraph.
0 CommentsUpdated again Friday morning
A group of clergy in the Diocese of London have signed a letter calling for the Church of England to reverse its ban on civil partnership ceremonies being held in churches.
This is reported fully today in The Times but that material is all behind a paywall. Here are some other reports:
BBC Church of England clergy challenge civil partnership stance
AFP Church of England clergy rebel on gay ceremonies
Mail Online Nearly 100 clergy revolt over Church ban on ‘gay weddings’
Text of letter to The Times:
We, the undersigned, believe that on the issue of holding civil partnership ceremonies in Church of England churches incumbents / priests in charge should be accorded the same rights as they enjoy at present in the matter of officiating at the marriage of divorced couples in church. Namely, that this should be a matter for the individual conscience of the incumbent / priest in charge.
We would respectfully request that our views in this regard are fully represented in Synod.
Updates
Changing Attitude has now published the full list of signatures to the letter, along with a covering letter sent to the clergy members of General Synod from the London diocese. See Signatories on the letter to The Times and clergy proctors of London Diocese.
The Bishop of London has issued this: Clergy letter about civil partnerships in our churches
I am of course aware of the letter that a number of clergy in this Diocese has signed regarding civil partnerships in our churches. Their request to General Synod is based on very proper pastoral concern and it is right that this matter continues to be discussed openly…
The Church Times has a report: London clergy seek right to choose together with the full list of signatories.
…The letter challenging this ban originated at St Luke’s, Chelsea, where the Rector is Prebendary Brian Leathard. On Wednesday, he said that his motivation had been pastoral: “More and more people are coming to us, and feel that we are turning them away without being able to hear their story. They have a genuine desire for the Church’s fullest ministry, for us to bless their loving relationships.”
His request is for “something akin to the remarriage of divorcees when, under guidelines and in consultation with the bishop, priests act in accordance with their consciences”. The letter asks for permissive legislation: “There will be priests who do not want to do this, and I would respect their desire not to.”
He disagreed with the view that the present system spared the clergy from the responsibility of rejecting individual couples. “For those of us at the front line, there is no sense of hiding behind a blanket ban: we are still turning people away.”
St Luke’s has not approached all the London clergy; none the less, Prebendary Leathard said: “This is a substantial proportion. We should like our General Synod representatives to hear this groundswell, and represent those views in the Synod.”
Guardian Riazat Butt Bishop of London dismisses calls for civil partnerships in churches
24 CommentsThe following article is reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor of The Tablet where it appeared in last week’s issue. thetablet.co.uk
4 CommentsBritish Religion in Numbers reports on the survey behind the claim made by the Sun that
‘Six out of ten Brits think bishops should be booted out of the House of Lords after defeating plans to cap benefits at £26,000 a year.’
As BRIN explains, in Lords Spiritual:
The survey was undertaken online on 24 January 2012, among a sample of 749 adults aged 18 and over, and in the wake of the amendment to the Bill passed by the House of Lords the previous night, which had the effect of excluding child benefit from the £26,000 cap being proposed by the Government. Data tables have been posted at: http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/pbzn4ckvyb/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-BishopsHouseLords-260112.pdf
Read the full article for reference to an earlier (2010) survey on the same topic, and look in the comments for a further link to yet another recent survey, this one for the Sunday Times.
All this has some relevance to the forthcoming General Synod debate on a Private Member’s Motion on House of Lords Reform.
The briefing papers are here:
Tony Berry and April Alexander
Background Note by the Secretary General
WATCH has published a paper explaining The Case against the Archbishops’ Amendment. This is reproduced in full below the fold.
The reason for doing this now is that next week the General Synod will debate a Diocesan Synod Motion from the Diocese of Manchester. The motion reads:
That this Synod call upon the House of Bishops, in exercise of its powers under Standing Order 60(b), to amend the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure in the manner proposed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York at the Revision Stage for the draft Measure”.
The briefing papers relating to this can be found here:
Diocese of Manchester
Diocese of Southwark (this diametrically opposed DSM will be moved as an amendment to the Manchester one)
Secretary General’s Background Note
The full voting records from the July 2010 debate, when this was previously considered, can be found here.
6 CommentsUpdated again Tuesday evening
Libby Purves wrote an article for The Times titled Retreat from your battle against gay marriage. Only Times subscribers can read it, but if you are such a person, it is well worth reading. Here is the link.
A small fragment is reproduced here.
Andrew Brown wrote at Cif belief that John Sentamu’s argument against gay marriage is already lost.
The archbishop of York, John Sentamu, hopes that people will pay attention to other things in his most recent interview than his attack on gay marriage. Fat chance. When he said that the government will be acting as dictators have done if it introduces gay marriage, he put himself squarely in the wrong on a matter that people care about.
Nor does he give what I think are likely to be his real, animating reasons: that he believes gay marriage is bad because it makes being gay look normal and even admirable, and because gay people should not have sex with each other. Around most of the world, and certainly in most of the Anglican Communion, these would be perfectly respectable and uncontroversial things to say. But in modern Britain they are a minority view, and certainly not a respectable one. They are not going to win a political argument – and that’s what he’s fighting here…
Archbishop Cranmer published Sentamu pitches for Canterbury.
Terry Sanderson of the NSS wrote at Huffington Post that Sentamu’s Shot at Gay Marriage Is Only the First Salvo in a Bitter Battle to Come.
John Smeaton of SPUC wrote British government is afraid of the homosexual lobby.
Megan Moore wrote at Conservative Home that The Archbishop of York doesn’t deserve to be called a “bigot” by Twitter’s intolerants.
YorkVision reports YUSU slam Archbishop over marriage remarks. And see also Archbishop of York criticised for “outdated and homophobic rhetoric”.
Peter Tatchell wrote Archbishop Sentamu is “intolerant and out of touch” and also Archbishop Sentamu Has No Right to Block Gay Civil Marriages.
The Uganda Humanist Association writes Sentamu, your words will travel.
JP Floru Director of Programmes at the Adam Smith Institute, wrote in the Telegraph Gay marriage won’t make the world stop turning
27 Comments…It is interesting to see that in the most recent debate on the issue of gay marriage, the bigots are falling out of the closet left, right and centre. They speak in code. Instead of shouting that “allowing gays to marry will demean Marriage”, they argue that “any marriage other than one between a male and female would change the meaning of marriage”. In other words: We Believe that Your Union is of Lesser Value than Ours – and the Law should Reflect This! Talk of totalitarianism.
Another argument is the “most people don’t want this” one. Well, there probably was a time when most people believed slavery was quite a useful little custom. A democratic majority does not legitimise trampling over the right of individuals to be treated as equal humans. Democracy can only be accepted by all if the power of the state to trample upon individuals is made impossible…
Updated Sunday evening
Martin Beckford of the Telegraph has spent the week in Jamaica with the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu.
In Saturday’s Telegraph he has two articles:
Dr John Sentamu: Church must avoid being ‘too middle class’
…While the focus has often been on the introduction of homosexual and female clergy, Dr Sentamu is aware that the Church must do more to avoid its leadership being solely white and middle class.
“I used to chair the committee for minority ethnic Anglican concerns, and we seemed to be making some progress but that now seems to be going backwards. Where we have lost out is black people who had been realised Anglicans, who are now joining Pentecostal churches. That’s a huge drain.”
He said white working-class parishioners were also poorly represented in the Church’s leadership, often being relegated to making tea after services, and highlighted support groups for single mothers and replacing theological books with audio versions as ways to help disadvantaged groups.
“The Church should be a sign of the kingdom of heaven and should be telling us what it will look like. Heaven is not going to be full of just black people, just working-class people, just middle-class people, it’s going to be, in the words of Desmond Tutu, a rainbow people of God in all its diversity.”
Don’t legalise gay marriage, Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu warns David Cameron
NB This article now also includes a video interview. Watching it is recommended.
…But the Archbishop says it is not the role of the state to redefine marriage, threatening a new row between the Church and state just days after bishops in the House of Lords led a successful rebellion over plans to cap benefits.
“Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman,” says Dr Sentamu. “I don’t think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can’t just [change it] overnight, no matter how powerful you are.
“We’ve seen dictators do it in different contexts and I don’t want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way.
“It’s almost like somebody telling you that the Church, whose job is to worship God [will be] an arm of the Armed Forces. They must take arms and fight. You’re completely changing tradition.”
Earlier this week, Lynne Featherstone (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Equalities Office) answered this question in parliament on the subject:
(1) what recent discussions she has had with (a) the Church of England and (b) other church groups on same sex marriages in church;
(2) what representations she has received from the Church of England on same sex marriages in church.
Answer:
The Government will publish a formal consultation on equal civil marriage in March 2012. I have met with a wide range of organisations ahead of this consultation including with representatives from the following church organisations: Church of England, Catholic Church, the Evangelical Alliance, Christian Institute, Quakers and Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. Discussions have been held and are ongoing with other organisations including those representing other faith groups, non-religious groups and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups.This consultation will not propose any changes to religious marriage. Same-sex couples will not be able, under these proposals, to have a marriage through a religious ceremony on religious premises.
Update
Rosalind English has written this at UK Human Rights Blog: Archbishop on warpath.
54 CommentsDr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, has thrown a firecracker into the consultation on gay marriage, which is about to begin in March. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph he declared that he did not agree that it was the role of the state to define what marriage is. ”It is set in tradition and history and you can’t just [change it] overnight, no matter how powerful you are”.
Last week’s Church Times carried a detailed report which is now available to non-subscribers: Synod given chance to signal its wishes on women bishops by Margaret Duggan and Ed Thornton.
THE subject of women bishops will dominate the General Synod’s meeting in Church House, Westminster, next month.
Dr Colin Podmore, the new Clerk to the Synod, said at a press briefing a week ago that there were four separate items about it on the agenda, with ten documents to back them. It would be the first time that the membership of the current Synod, elected a year-and-a-half ago, has tackled the subject, and so it would be of great interest to see which way they might go.
The secretary-general, William Fittall, refused to speculate on any outcome. He said that it would be a very significant chapter in a debate that had already gone on for more than a decade. It would be a chance for the Synod to reflect on the draft legislation, and on the Illustrative Draft Code of Practice.
Members would be invited to make suggestions and recommendations, but not to make amendments; only the House of Bishops could amend the legislation when it met in May. Should any of those amendments be substantial, the legislation would have to be referred to the diocese again; otherwise, the final vote could be next July…
Scroll down the same page for a second article: Illustrative code by Glyn Paflin.
THE Code of Practice on women bishops cannot be settled until the Measure itself has been passed, but the Synod will debate an Illustrative Draft Code of Practice on the Tuesday of its next meeting.
Drafted by a House of Bishops working party, chaired by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, the Rt Revd Nigel Stock, it supersedes the illustrative draft produced by another group in 2008, owing The House of Bishops debated the new draft code in December, and the Archbishops’ foreword to the report says that the House “does not wish to see any outcome that would entrench radical division or given any impression of a ‘two-tier’ episcopate”. But it is committed to “the most adequate and sustainable provision for theological dissent over the ordination of women”, and seeks “a balanced provision” that will enable all members of the Church of England to “flourish”.
The House has committed itself to three principles: (1) ensuring that bishops do not discriminate when selecting candidates for ordination on grounds of their theological convictions about the admission of women to holy orders; (2) paying heed, when new bishops are chosen to provide episcopal ministry under diocesan schemes, to the theological convictions on women’s ordination of those who issued the Letter of Request for their ministry; and (3) maintaining a supply of bishops who can minister to those unable to accept women bishops…
Earlier this week Andrew Brown wrote for the Guardian that The Church of England’s fudge on female bishops is breathtaking.
The Church of England’s House of Bishops – for which, read the archbishops of Canterbury and York – has explained how they hope to mollify the opponents of female clergy. The proposals are breathtaking.
The archbishops envisage that the Church of England, once it has female bishops, will continue ordaining men who do not accept these women, finding them jobs they will deign to accept, and promoting some of them to be bishops who will work to ensure the continued supply of male priests who refuse to accept female clergy. In fact, the church will pay three bishops (the formerly “flying” sees of Ebbsfleet, Richborough, and Beverley) to work full time against their female colleagues, and to nourish the resistance.
The General Synod, last summer, rejected the archbishops’ plan to fix a reservation in law where the opponents could live as if nothing had changed. Now they have brought back the same proposals, but call them “a code of practice” instead. In theory, this gives both sides what they want. In reality neither will find it easy to accept.
Obviously this will be unacceptable to most supporters of women’s ordination. But the cream of the joke is that it will probably be unacceptable to their principled opponents as well. The unscrupulous ones will, of course, be very happy with the deal.
Despite all these concessions, there will be female bishops, as there are already female priests, and these will be treated exactly the same as male ones – except by the men who don’t want to treat them equally and who believe that God has called them to undermine women’s authority wherever it appears.
This is apparently Rowan Williams’s idea of justice…
To read in full what the archbishops wrote in their Foreword to the Report of the Working Group on an Illustrative Draft Code of Practice, see the first couple of pages of GS Misc 1007, available as a PDF here.
12 CommentsUpdated again Thursday morning
The Press Association reports:
The Government has suffered a defeat over its welfare reform proposals as peers supported a move to exempt child benefit from the £26,000 benefits cap.
Peers voted by 252 to 237, majority 15, in favour of an amendment introduced by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, which received Labour backing.
He said: “It cannot be right for the cap to be the same for a childless couple as for a couple with children. Child benefit is the most appropriate way to right this unfairness.”
He argued that, in effect, the cap denied child benefit payments to people whose other benefits had reached £500 a week.“This cap is not simply targeted at wealthy families living in large houses,” he said. “It will damage those who have to pay high rents because often that rent has increased substantially in the course of their occupancy of that house.”
The defeat was the fifth the Government has received on the Bill, including three on one day earlier this month…
Or, as Channel 4 News reported:
An amendment tabled by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, calling for child benefit to be excluded from the cap, was passed by 252 votes to 237, a majority of 15.
A Labour amendment to exempt families threatened by homelessness from the cap was rejected by 250 votes to 222, a majority of 28. But 17 Liberal Democrats, coalition partners with the Conservatives, supported it.
The Lords was debating the government’s plans to ensure that a workless household cannot claim more than £26,000 a year in benefits – the average income after tax of a working family. The cap is equivalent to £500 a week for people with children.
Labour backed Bishop Packer’s amendment, despite being in favour of a cap in principle.
Bishop Packer said the cap “failed to differentiate between households with children and those without”, adding: “This cap is not simply targeted at wealthy families living in large houses. It will damage those who have to pay high rents because often that rent has increased substantially in the course of their occupancy of that house.”
The record of the debate on this amendment starts here.
The voting record on this amendment can be found here.
Five bishops voted in favour of the amendment: Chichester, Ripon & Leeds, Leicester, Lichfield, Manchester.
Speeches:
On an earlier amendment: Ripon and Leeds; Chichester
On this amendment: Ripon and Leeds; Chichester
Andrew Brown wrote at Cif Belief that This welfare bill has united bishops like never before.
The Children’s Society issued this Statement in response to the Government’s defeat in the House of Lords with regard to the proposed benefit cap set out in Welfare Reform Bill:
“The Lords have stood up to the Government and sent a clear message in support of children up and down the country.
“The Children’s Society is delighted that the Lords have seen sense today and excluded child benefit when calculating the benefit cap. Children should not be held responsible and penalised for the employment circumstances of their parents.
“Child benefit is a non-means tested benefit paid to working and non-working families. It’s a benefit all households with children are entitled to and is there to help with the cost of having children.
“If the intention of the benefit cap is to promote fairness, it is totally unfair that a small family with a household income of £80,000 a year receive it, yet a large family with a benefit income of £26,000 are excluded.
“The Government must not ignore the fact that the Lords have spoken out to defend the plight of some of the country’s most disadvantaged children”.
The Guardian has a review of media reactions to all this here.
The BBC has an interesting analysis: What is the role of bishops in UK politics?
George Carey My fellow bishops are wrong. Fuelling the culture of welfare dependency is immoral.
The Bishop of Leicester writes in the Telegraph ‘Lord Carey was wrong to defend government’s welfare reforms’.
The Independent has a leading article: Bishops and benefits don’t mix.
35 CommentsUpdated again Saturday evening
GS Misc 1011 has been published: The Church of England and the Anglican Church in North America (PDF).
The document is published over the signatures of the two archbishops.
The final sections read as follows:
15. Where then do matters currently stand concerning ACNA on each of these
three issues, namely relations with the Church of England, relations with the
Anglican Communion and the ability of ACNA clergy to be authorised to
minister in the Church of England?16. The Synod motion rightly began by referring to “the distress caused by recent
divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and
Canada.” That distress, in which we share, is a continuing element in the
present situation and is likely to remain so for some considerable time.17. Wounds are still fresh. Those who follow developments in North America
from some distance have a responsibility not to say or do anything which will
inflame an already difficult situation and make it harder for those directly
involved to manage the various challenges with which they are still grappling.18. We would, therefore, encourage an open-ended engagement with ACNA on
the part of the Church of England and the Communion, while recognising that
the outcome is unlikely to be clear for some time yet, especially given the
strong feelings on all sides of the debate in North America.19. The Church of England remains fully committed to the Anglican Communion
and to being in communion both with the Anglican Church of Canada and the
Episcopal Church (TEC). In addition, the Synod motion has given Church of
England affirmation to the desire of ACNA to remain in some sense within the
Anglican family.20. Among issues that will need to be explored in direct discussions between the
Church of England and ACNA are the canonical situation of the latter, its
relationship to other Churches of the Communion outside North America and
its attitude towards existing Anglican ecumenical agreements.21. Where clergy from ACNA wish to come to England the position in relation to
their orders and their personal suitability for ministry here will be considered
by us on a case by case basis under the Overseas and Other Clergy (Ministry
and Ordination) Measure 1967.
Updates
Episcopal News Service reports this development with the headline Archbishops suggest ‘open-ended engagement’ with breakaway Anglicans.
The American Anglican Council comments on it in its weekly update (scroll down for the article by Phil Ashey).
ACNA itself has now published this statement: Anglican Church Embraces Working Relationship with Church of England and the bulk of it is quoted below the fold.
57 CommentsThe Church Times has today published an electronic copy of the Osborne Report on homosexuality. This should have been published in 1989.
In an accompanying article, the Very Revd Dr Jane Shaw explains the background to its suppression at the time.
When the CofE wanted to talk
A new (all-male) group is rethinking Issues in Human Sexuality, the 1991 report that remains the Bishops’ line on homosexuality…
The increasing acceptance of gay men and lesbians in the wider society in the 1970s and ’80s meant that the Church of England had to address the subject. In 1979, a church report, Homosexual Relationships: A contribution to discussion, was published, but was considered too liberal by many in the Church.
So, in 1986, a standing committee of the House of Bishops asked the Board for Social Responsibility to set up a working party to advise the bishops. This resulted in the Osborne report of 1989 (chaired by the Revd June Osborne, a member of the Board), which drew on the direct testimony of gay and lesbian Christians…
The full text of the report is available as an 8Mb PDF file.
7 CommentsThe Press Association reports:
The City of London Corporation has won its high court bid to evict anti-capitalist protesters from outside St Paul’s Cathedral.
In a judgment that followed a five-day hearing held before Christmas, Mr Justice Lindblom granted orders for possession and injunctions against Occupy London.
He said that the proposed action was “entirely lawful and justified” as well as necessary and proportionate and refused permission to appeal although the protesters have seven working days to renew their applications directly to the Court of Appeal.
The corporation agreed not to enforce the orders until 4pm on 27 January pending such a move, which is to be launched on Friday…
The full judgment can be found via the UK Human Rights Blog at Occupy London to be evicted – full judgment.
St Paul’s Cathedral issued this statement:
“We have always said that a permanent camp is an unsustainable forum, but would reiterate to the protestors that we have offered a number of alternative platforms for the important issues they raise to be voiced. We are, through those platforms, committed to engage in the continued debate on these issues and believe St Paul’s can be an effective forum for such debate.”
David Shariatmadari reports for the Guardian that Occupy London protesters greet news of eviction ruling with quiet dismay.
6 CommentsUpdated again on 1 February
There were two news reports in Sunday newspapers concerning the Dean of St Albans.
One was in the Mail on Sunday and written by Jonathan Petre, see ‘I’ll sue Church of England if it bars me from being bishop,’ says gay dean. (A later version with a quite different headline appears here.)
The other was in the Sunday Times by Kate Mansey but is hidden behind a paywall. However, I can say that it included a long quote from the memorandum written by Colin Slee and published some time ago in connection with a Guardian news story.
Several other newspapers have followed up these reports. The most thoughtful is the Independent which has today published the following items:
Updates
Andrew Brown has this analysis: Why is this gay cleric considering suing the church if he won’t win?
…Look at the small print of its legal opinion on civil partnerships, transparently designed to prevent John from being able to sue for discrimination. No selection committee would ask straight candidates for a job whether they had ever had pre-marital sex, and, if they had, whether they were jolly sorry for it. Yet the Church of England believes that it is legally and morally OK to ask the equivalent questions of gay men: “Whether the candidate had always complied with the church’s teachings on sexual activity being solely within matrimony; whether he had expressed repentance for any previous pre-marital sexual activity.”
That is offensive enough, but the real point is found in the apparently balanced statements of disagreement. “It is clear that a significant number of Anglicans, on grounds of strongly held religious conviction, believe that a Christian leader should not entire into a civil partnership, even if celibate … it is equally clear that many other Anglicans believe it is appropriate that clergy who are gay by orientation entire into civil partnerships.” This formulation gives the game away. It is only conservative evangelical opinion which is described as “strongly held religious conviction”. The liberals merely “believe it is appropriate”, with the implication that their beliefs on this are not religious at all. This kind of nonsense was dealt with decades ago where women priests were concerned. What needs saying, loud and clear, is that the case for liberalism here is every bit as religious, and as theologically informed, as the case for the conservatives…
Two further analyses:
New Statesman Nelson Jones Bishop sacrifice
When it was announced that the Church of England had established an advisory group on human sexuality, consisting of four bishops and a retired civil servant, there was some criticism of the fact that all its members were (ahem) male. But that was only to be expected, and not just because it happens to be a group of bishops, which remains, for the time being at least, an exclusively male club. In Anglican parlance, “human sexuality” is code for, “What do we do about the gays?”
…In the case of the Church of England, there are currently two major sticking points, which may or may not be linked: the question of whether civil partnership ceremonies should be allowed to take place in church, and the question of whether openly gay men, even if celibate, should be allowed to become bishops. In both cases the present situation is one of studied hypocrisy…
Episcopal Café Jim Naughton Misleading media coverage: the latest in the Jeffrey John saga
There is a full report in the Church Times see C of E policy on appointing bishops may face legal test
And the Press column by Andrew Brown is now also available to non-subscribers: An enemy hath spun this
81 Comments…Right at the bottom of the Mail’s story was the line that “one source said Dr John suggested he would drop his legal threat if he felt he would not be ruled out for future posts.”
Of course, a huge amount turns on whether this source was a friend or enemy of Dr John, because the Sunday Times story and the Mail on Sunday’s headline both invite the riposte that they got from George Pitcher on the Mail’s website.
He wasted no time on the ball, and went straight for the man: “We’re forced to ask how seriously we’re likely to take him as a bishop if we harbour the suspicion that he won his post, even by suggestion, because he’d declared that if he wasn’t delivered such-and-such a bishopric then he’d sue.”
But is that really why Dr John was discussing legal action? It is clearly true that Alison Downie has been corresponding with church legal authorities on his behalf. But friends — real friends — of his, and allies, too, suggest that what he was trying to do instead was to ensure that civil partnerships are not in themselves a bar to promotion. That is just as upsetting to conservative Evangelicals as if he were actuated by personal ambition.
It is actually much more difficult for the Archbishop of Canterbury to handle, and much more appealing to public opinion. One begins to see why the story might have emerged from his enemies with the spin that it had.
From the Diocese of Virginia: Court Rules in Favor of Diocese
1/10/2012
Tonight, the Fairfax Circuit Court issued its ruling in favor of the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church in litigation seeking to recover Episcopal church property. “Our goal throughout this litigation has been to return faithful Episcopalians to their church homes and Episcopal properties to the mission of the Church,” said the Rt. Rev. Shannon S. Johnston, bishop of Virginia.
The court ruled that the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia have “a contractual and proprietary interest” in each of the properties subject to the litigation. The court ordered that all property subject to its ruling be turned over to the Diocese.
“We hope that this ruling will lead to our congregations returning to worship in their church homes in the near future, while finding a way to support the CANA congregations as they plan their transition,” said Henry D.W. Burt, secretary of the Diocese and chief of staff.
Bishop Johnston added, “While we are grateful for the decision in our favor, we remain mindful of the toll this litigation has taken on all parties involved, and we continue to pray for all affected by the litigation.”
The ruling can be found here (PDF).
From the CANA website: Statement by the ACNA Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic
(January 10, 2012) – Seven Anglican congregations in Virginia that are parties to the church property case brought by The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia are reviewing today’s ruling by the Fairfax County Circuit Court that the property should be turned over to the Episcopal Diocese.
The Circuit Court heard the case last spring after the Virginia Supreme Court remanded it in June 2010. The congregations previously had succeeded in their efforts on the Circuit Court level to defend the property that they bought and paid for.
“Although we are profoundly disappointed by today’s decision, we offer our gratitude to Judge Bellows for his review of this case. As we prayerfully consider our legal options, we above all remain steadfast in our effort to defend the historic Christian faith. Regardless of today’s ruling, we are confident that God is in control, and that He will continue to guide our path,” said Jim Oakes, spokesperson for the seven Anglican congregations.
The Rev. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church, a historic property involved in the case, stated, “The core issue for us is not physical property, but theological and moral truth and the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world. Wherever we worship, we remain Anglicans because we cannot compromise our historic faith. Like our spiritual forebears in the Reformation, ‘Here we stand. So help us God. We can do no other.’”
The seven Anglican congregations are members of the newly established Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, a member diocese within the Anglican Church in North America. Bishop John Guernsey of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic has expressed to leaders of the seven congregations, “Our trust is in the Lord who is ever faithful. He is in control and He will enable you to carry forward your mission for the glory of Jesus Christ and the extension of His Kingdom. Know that your brothers and sisters in Christ continue to stand with you and pray for you.”
The Anglican Curmudgeon has his analysis of the judgment here.
18 CommentsA group which styles itself as The Commission on Assisted Dying issued a report last week.
The official Church of England response was this: Statement on the report of the Commission for Assisted Dying.
The ‘Commission on Assisted Dying’ is a self-appointed group that excluded from its membership anyone with a known objection to assisted suicide. In contrast, the majority of commissioners, appointed personally by Lord Falconer, were already in favour of changing the law to legitimise assisted suicide. Lord Falconer has, himself, been a leading proponent for legitimising assisted suicide, for some years.
The commission undertook a quest to find effective safeguards that could be put in place to avoid abuse of any new law legitimising assisted suicide. Unsurprisingly, given the commission’s composition, it has claimed to have found such safeguards.
Unlike the commissioners, we are unconvinced that the commission has been successful in its quest. It has singularly failed to demonstrate that vulnerable people are not placed at greater risk under its proposals than is currently the case under present legislation. In spite of the findings of research that it commissioned, it has failed adequately to take into account the fact that in all jurisdictions where assisted suicide or euthanasia is permitted, there are breaches of safeguards as well as notable failures in monitoring and reporting.
The present law strikes an excellent balance between safeguarding hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and treating with fairness and compassion those few people who, acting out of selfless motives, have assisted a loved one to die.
Put simply, the most effective safeguard against abuse is to leave the law as it is. What Lord Falconer has done is to argue that it is morally acceptable to put many vulnerable people at increased risk so that the aspirations of a small number of individuals, to control the time, place and means of their deaths, might be met. Such a calculus of risk is unnecessary and wholly unacceptable.
The Church Times reported this in a news article by Ed Thornton Assisted dying ‘unwise’, warns Canon
CANON James Woodward, a member of the Falconer Commission on Assisted Dying, this week declined to support its conclusion that there is “a strong case for providing the choice of assisted dying for terminally ill people”.
The Commission, chaired by the former Lord Chancellor, was established in September 2010 “to consider whether the current legal and policy approach to assisted dying in England and Wales is fit for purpose”.
Its report, published yesterday, argues that the law should be changed to allow terminally ill people in the last year of their lives who are mentally sound to ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose. A second doctor would have to assess the candidate independently, and alternative treatments would have to be presented. Candidates would have to administer the lethal dose themselves.
The Revd Dr Woodward, a Canon of Windsor, was the sole dissenting voice on the Commission. He said last week that a visit to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland had been his Damascus-road experience. Writing in today’s Church Times, he says: “Fundamentally, we cannot demand freedom to choose at any cost. I understand that there are significant difficulties with the current law. Yet my visit to Switzerland . . . raised many more questions about the way a culture views life, death, and the freedom to choose…
The full text of Canon Woodward’s article is available at Why I dissented from Falconer.
…It has been a privilege to travel alongside my fellow commissioners, but we have not ended up in the same place. In the end, mine was the single dissenting voice from the conclusions. My fellow commissioners have accommodated my divergence with generosity. I support the coherence, rigour, and quality of this work, and hope that it will be read and used as a basis for further research, work, and public debate…
The Church Times also carried this leader article: Assisting the dying to find dignity.
39 CommentsTHE Commission on Assisted Dying assembled by Lord Falconer knew that it had a large stone to push uphill. Parliamentary debates too numerable to recall have considered various schemes for euthanasia and found all wanting. A certain level of help with the stone-pushing has been gained by presenting this as a libertarian issue: those nasty, conservative Churches preventing people from doing what they wish. But, in general, the difficulties of regulation and the lack of safeguards have left a large body of opinion unconvinced that a change in the law can be made securely, even before any slippery-slope arguments are deployed…
Jim Naughton wrote at Episcopal Café about the year ahead for The Episcopal Church.
A number of comments related to this article were made in an earlier thread here, which was about an English subject: Same-sex Marriage and Disestablishment.
In order to stop the discussion on the latter topic being dominated by Americans discussing something quite different, I have created this article.
6 CommentsChurch of England press release:
47 CommentsThe membership of a group to advise the House of Bishops on the Church of England’s approach to human sexuality has been announced. The Group will be chaired by Sir Joseph Pilling. Sir Joseph, a former Permanent Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, chaired the group that produced the report on senior church appointments, Talent and Calling, published in 2007.
The other members of the Group are the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Michael Perham, the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Rev Keith Sinclair, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Jonathan Baker and the Bishop of Warwick, the Rt Rev John Stroyan.
The House of Bishops announced on 1 July that it intended to draw together material from the listening process undertaken within the Church of England over recent years in the light of the 1998 Lambeth Conference resolution on human sexuality. It also committed itself to offering proposals on how the continuing discussion within the Church of England about these matters might best be shaped in the light of the listening process. The task of the new group is to help the House discharge its commitment to produce a consultation document in 2013. The membership of another group, advising the House on its review of the 2005 civil partnership statement, was announced on 1 December.
The full text of the 1 July statement.
Iain McLean has written at OurKingdom about Same-sex marriage and the Church of England: an argument for disestablishment.
He starts this way:
The UK government has promised to launch a consultation on ‘how to make civil marriage available to same-sex couples’ in England and Wales. Note: HOW, not WHETHER. This reflects the astonishing social change in the last two decades in the UK and other liberal democracies. Surveys such as British Social Attitudes show that moral opposition to gay relationships has gone from a substantial majority to a minority in only 20 years. The Coalition is going with the flow, although not as fast as the devolved Scottish government, whose consultation on the same subject has already taken place.
This is a very difficult subject for faith communities, many of which have been left stranded; and many of which have a principled opposition to recognising same-sex relationships in their churches, synagogues, or temples. That opposition must be honoured, if religious freedom is to mean anything; but equally, so must the principles of those who do want to recognise same-sex commitments in their places of worship.
And he concludes:
29 Comments… If Parliament makes same-sex marriage possible, will the obligation not then extend to offering same-sex marriage to any parishioner?
No. it cannot and it must not. As the Quakers, Unitarians, and Liberal Jews told the Lords last month, religious freedom must mean the freedom to say no as well as the freedom to say yes. Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights says the same thing. In England, although not in Scotland, the current proposal is to exclude religious communities entirely from the arrangements for same-sex marriage. This will predictably come under pressure if the Government’s intention to legislate for civil same-sex marriage in England and Wales by 2015 comes to pass, and/or if Scotland allows religious celebrants to officiate at same-sex marriages. But, in any such extension of permission to religious communities, there must at an absolute minimum be a conscience clause modelled on the existing ones relating to divorced or transgender people. To force unwilling religious celebrants to celebrate same-sex marriage would be deeply illiberal, and plain stupid.
But this blows English-style establishment out of the water. The courts have already ruled that a Church of England parish is not a “public authority”. This ruling was necessary to protect religious freedom. If parishes were public authorities, they would be subject to the public-sector equality duty laid down in the Equality Act 2010. They could not then refuse to marry an otherwise-qualified same-sex couple. In the interests of religious freedom, it is appropriate to insist that the Church of England is no more a public authority than is any other faith community. But then, it is imperative that it be treated in the same way, and subject to the same law, as all the others. True religious freedom does not only permit, but requires, the full disestablishment of the Church of England and the removal of its bishops from the UK’s legislature. The Church of England could remain a “national” church like the Church of Scotland, but without the entanglements that have led it astray. Each faith community must then decide its attitude to same-sex marriage on its own principles and according to its own rules. There must be no bullying of either side by the other; but nor should there be any claims for special treatment.
A year after the Ordinariate was established in England and Wales, the corresponding announcements have been made in the USA.
Rocco Palmo Upon This “Rock,” An Ordinariate Is Born
In an unprecedented Sunday announcement — a significant sign of Rome’s degree of seriousness about the effort — the Vatican’s press bulletin gave official word of the erection of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, encompassing the territory of the United States. The national quasi-diocese for the entering groups is the second of its kind, following England’s Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was launched a year ago this month.
Fr Jeffrey Steenson, 59, the former Episcopal bishop of Rio Grande ordained a priest of the archdiocese of Santa Fe in 2009, has been named the founding Ordinary. A married father of three and Oxford-trained patristics scholar who’s been serving until now as a professor at Houston’s St Mary’s Seminary and University of St Thomas, Steenson’s appointment is effective immediately…
George Conger Jeffrey Steenson to lead the Anglican Ordinariate in the U.S.
The Vatican has appointed the former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande to head up the American branch of the Anglican Ordinariate.
On 1 Jan 2012 the Vatican announced that Fr. Jeffrey Steenson had been named the Ordinary for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. The American branch of the ordinariate will be based in Houston, Texas and is the second national jurisdiction for former Anglicans established under the provisions of Pope Benedict’s 2009 apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus”.
A second former Episcopal clergyman, Fr. Scott Hurd, who was received into the Catholic Church in 1996 and is presently a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, has been appointed vicar-general of the ordinariate for a three-year term, the Vatican announcement said…
The website of the American Ordinariate is here.
Update
The situation with respect to Canada is discussed here by Rocco Palmo On Day One, The Ordinariate Spreads North.
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