The Bishop of Aston, the Rt Revd Anne Hollinghurst, is to become the new Principal of the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham. Aston is a suffragan see in the Diocese of Birmingham.
Details are on the websites of the Diocese of Birmingham and the Queen’s Foundation.
19 CommentsThe Rt Revd Tony Robinson, Bishop of Wakefield, has announced that he will retire on 31 August 2024. He is one of five Area Bishops in the Anglican Diocese of Leeds.
31 CommentsUpdated 7 April and again 9 April
Law & Religion UK reports: Dean Richard Peers CDM decision
On 21 March 2024, the Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal for the Diocese of Oxford handed down its Decision The Revd Canon Richard Peers – March 2024 and reasons in relation to facts and conduct.
Updates
RULING IN RESPECT OF PARAGRAPH 309 CLERGY DISCIPLINE MEASURE 2003: CODE OF PRACTICE Published on 8 April.
Comments on this article remain closed.
0 CommentsPress release from the Church of England
Survey for initial response to Jay report
21/03/2024
A survey has been published today for anyone who wishes to make an initial response to the recommendations made by Professor Jay in her report on the Future of Church Safeguarding. The report from Professor Alexis Jay, former chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, IICSA, makes recommendations for a new independent safeguarding and scrutiny body for the Church of England. Professor Jay was commissioned by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to carry out this work in July 2023 and her report was published in February 2024.
Survey findings will be presented to the Wilkinson/Jay Response Group (see revised Terms of Reference) and will be available on the Church of England website. All survey responses are anonymous and no names or identifying details will be requested or produced. The survey closes on April 18.
Further information on safeguarding in the Church and independence
9 CommentsPress release from the Prime Minister’s office
For further information see the Blackburn diocesan website.
The King has approved the nomination of The Reverend Dr Joseph Kennedy for appointment as Bishop of Burnley.
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
Published 22 March 2024
The King has approved the nomination of The Reverend Dr Joseph Kennedy, Vicar of Oxton St Saviour in the Diocese of Chester, for appointment to the Suffragan See of Burnley in the Diocese of Blackburn in succession to the Right Reverend Philip North, following his translation to the See of Blackburn.
Joe was educated at Edinburgh University and at St Hugh’s College and Keble College, Oxford, and trained for ministry at St Stephen’s House, Oxford. He served as a Curate in the Diocese of Oxford, at Stratfield Mortimer (St Mary) and Mortimer West End with Padworth, and at Abingdon, and was ordained Priest in 2003.
In 2005, Joe was appointed Dean of Chapel, Chaplain and Fellow at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and additionally served as Chaplain and Senior Member at Newnham College. In 2008, Joe took up the role of Principal, College of the Resurrection, Mirfield.
In 2011, Joe was appointed to his current role as Vicar of Oxton St Saviour, in the Diocese of Chester, additionally serving as a Lecturer and Tutor at St Mellitus College from 2015 until 2020, and as Rural Dean of Birkenhead since 2021.
20 CommentsThe Church of England has recently published its Parish Finance Statistics 2022. These provide the latest financial information, including:
Tables showing parish finances aggregated to diocese level are available as an excel file. Finance statistics for previous years, and other publications of the Research and Statistics Unit can be found on the resources, publications, and data page.
40 CommentsUpdated
This advertisement has appeared on Guardian Jobs, originated by Charisma Recruitment.
The full text is copied below the fold.
Co-Chair
Updated Tuesday
The Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice describes itself this way:
A seed for growth and change
In 2023, the Church Commissioners for England published a report into its historic links to African chattel enslavement. In penitence and hope, the Church Commissioners proposed a fund to address a legacy of racialised inequality that scars the lives of billions to this day.
The Church Commissioners appointed an independent Oversight Group to make their recommendations on how the fund should be used. This group is acutely aware that the crimes against humanity rooted in enslavement have caused damage so vast it will require patient effort spanning generations to address. They believe this fund represents a start to breaking the chains of discrimination.
The Oversight Group has a bold vision for the £100m Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice which they would like to see grow to £1bn and act as a catalyst for real change.
Other recent documents about this:
Church Times: Church Commissioners look for partners to boost reparatory-justice fund to £1 billion
Updates
Guardian Harriet Sherwood ‘It’s not a lot when you consider the harm’: Why bishop is calling for £1bn in C of E reparations for slavery (Interview with the Bishop of Croydon)
Archbishop of York We need a conversation about justice (Article in the Sunday Times)
90 CommentsNew programme board to help steer LLF next steps
08/03/2024Lead Bishop gives update to Synod members
Following discussion at the February meeting of General Synod, further details of plans for a new Programme Board to oversee the ongoing work of Living in Love and Faith (LLF) have been shared with General Synod members.
The Bishop of Leicester, Martyn Snow, the lead bishop for LLF, has written to Synod members to outline plans for a new oversight board and the re-formation of three working groups: the Pastoral Guidance Working Group, the Pastoral Reassurance Working Group and the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) Working Group.
Synod members have been invited to express their interest in joining the groups which will be formed of bishops, other clergy and laity.
In addition to these working groups, meetings with stakeholders will be organised to help enable progress ahead of a meeting of The House of Bishops’ meeting May.
Two formal groups will also be formed, as agreed following the commendation of the PLF:
- A Pastoral Consultative Group – to aid bishops, diocesan staff and others with answers to the broad questions that arise from the implementation of PLF and other LLF work. This group will comprise a small number of bishops, supported by consultants.
- An Independent Review Panel – to consider concerns about the implementation of the PLF and application of the Pastoral Guidance, and make recommendations for addressing justifiable concerns.
A timeline is being finalised to allow these groups to make progress ahead of the House of Bishops’ meeting later in May, which will feed into the General Synod sessions in July.
Read the full letter to Synod members from the Bishop of Leicester.
Church Times report on this: Synod members invited to apply to join LLF working groups
16 CommentsUpdated 7 March to add item 13 and 14
The electronic voting results from this month’s General Synod are now available online and are linked below, with links to the order papers containing the relevant texts.
Electronic voting results
Archbishops’ Commission of Families and Households (Order Paper IV)
Safeguarding Independence (Order Paper II)
Living in Love and Faith (Order Paper VI)
24 CommentsThis post will be updated as the meeting proceeds.
The Church of England’s General Synod is meeting this weekend. The timetable is here, the agenda is here and the papers are here.
House of Laity meeting
In addition the House of Laity will meet on Sunday evening.
Live video etc
All sessions are streamed live on YouTube and remain available to view afterwards. Links have been provided in advance.
There is an official Twitter account.
Order papers
Business done
Official press releases
Press reports and comment
Church Times
The Guardian
32 CommentsUpdated Friday to add a second Church Times article
Gavin Drake Church Abuse
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church The Future of Church Safeguarding – A look at the Jay Report
also online at Modern Church
Ruth Peacock Religion Media Centre Celebration but concern at proposed new CofE independent safeguarding
Francis Martin Church Times Jay calls for root-and-branch reform of church safeguarding
Simon Walsh Church Times Varied responses to Jay report on Church of England safeguarding
1 CommentThe Questions (and answers) for this weekend’s meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod were issued today. They can be found online here: Questions Notice Paper February 2024.
Questions will be taken in two groups; on Friday from 5.30pm to 7.00pm, and for about an hour on Saturday morning. There are 225 questions.
Update
There is a correction to the answer to Question 62 in Notice Paper 7.
22 CommentsUPDATED
This report was commissioned by the Church of England and first announced on 20 July 2023. Details followed in August: see Future of Church Safeguarding.
The report is now published: The Future of Church Safeguarding (55 pages)
There is also a press release: Report into the future of safeguarding in the Church of England
And there is a video.
There is also this Legal Advice note (35 pages)
——–
The Church of England has issued a press release.
And there is this: Terms of Reference for the Jay and Wilkinson Reports Response Group
41 CommentsThe Bishop of Leicester has written to all members of the General Synod this morning, ahead of the LLF debate at Synod this coming weekend. The original is here and I haved copied the body of the letter below the fold.
0 CommentsThe Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, has announced with great sadness the unexpected death of his colleague, the Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham.
Paying tribute to Bishop Alan, Bishop Steven said: “Alan was a dear friend and colleague to many across the Diocese. Alan has deep friendships and pastoral relationships across both church and community in Bucks. He has offered remarkable leadership to our work in education and church schools over more than a decade. Alan has been a friend and advocate for survivors of abuse and a strong ally and supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community for many years.
“Alan had recently begun a well-earned sabbatical and was planning to use the time to plan and prepare for retirement in the next year. Alan loved God and loved God’s church with a rare passion. He was a bishop who prioritised the parishes and clergy in his care above everything else and served the people of Buckinghamshire with devotion over a long and demanding ministry.
“I will miss him as a friend and colleague. The Church has lost a wise, pastoral and prophetic bishop.”
There is more on the Oxford diocesan website.
23 CommentsSarah Wilkinson’s report into the Church of England’s Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) was published in December. A debate on Safeguarding Independence (GS 2336) is scheduled to take place on Saturday 24 February at General Synod.
In advance of this debate six short documentary-style films (“The Wilkinson Files”) which highlight the key findings of Dr Wilkinson’s Report are being released by two Synod members. They explain these findings while displaying their precise location within the report. Each film is between 8 and about 15 minutes in duration.
The films are being released daily. So far two are available, but links are available for all six.
The films are presented by Martin Sewell and Clive Billenness, both Members of the House of Laity of the General Synod and both very active in matters relating to Safeguarding. Martin is a retired solicitor specialising in Child Protection. Clive is a Certified Auditor who is still in pracce and is also an elected member of the Audit Commiee of the Archbishops’ Council.
Clive said “When the Wilkinson Report is considered at the forthcoming meeting of the General Synod, speakers will probably only have 2 or 3 minutes each to speak about it. The Report itself reflects the legal background of its author and is packed with painstaking detail. We wanted to help Synod members to be as fully-informed as possible before Synod considers this. We have approached this like a forensic examinaon and have only included in the films any information contained in Dr Wilkinson’s Report, information of which she was aware or information in the Public Domain at the time she wrote her report.
“We have not invited anyone else to comment in our films or to appear on them in the interests of strict imparality. We leave it instead to our viewers to draw their own conclusions about how these sad events came to pass and how we can avoid a repetition. Dr Wilkinson’s report makes it clear that some fundamental changes are needed to the way the Church of England and the Archbishops’ Council conducts itself when dealing with Safeguarding.”
The films detail how the ISB was created, how it struggled to achieve the proper independence which abuse survivors and others expected, how it was closed down, followed by an detailed examinaon of the failures in governance which Dr Wilkinson highlights, a summary of the voices of the survivors who spoke to her and, finally, a short analysis of the “Magic Moments” where serious mistakes occurred which led to the failure and closure of the ISB.
18 CommentsOn 18 January, we published a letter addressed to the archbishops calling for the suspension and investigation of the Secretary General, William Nye. This letter was written by Martin Sewell and signed by 20 members of General Synod. The full text of the letter is here.
A reply to this letter was sent on 6 February from Carl Hughes, Chair of the Finance Committee of the Archbishops’ Council.
Martin Sewell replied to this on 8 February. The formal response is here, and there is also a covering note and an addendum.
Carl Hughes replied to this on 11 February.
39 CommentsThe Church of England has published its Cathedral Statistics 2022 and an accompanying press release, which is copied below.
Cathedral attendance continued post pandemic bounce back, 2022 figures show
08/02/2024
Attendance at Church of England cathedrals continued to bounce back following the pandemic, new statistics for 2022 published today show.
Figures show that adult usual Sunday attendance rose 60% between 2021 and 2022 for the 42 Church of England mainland Cathedrals to 12,300 adults. A total of 28,200 people including children attended services every week, according to Cathedral Statistics 2022.
Over the year there were 584,000 attendances at specially arranged services – not included in average weekly attendance – such as school services. The number of special services stood at 2,100. The total reported attendance at Christmas services stood at 104,000.
However the figures had not yet reached pre pandemic levels of attendance.
The number of girl choristers in Cathedrals stood at its highest total in 2022 at 790, out of 1,500 child choristers. The number of Cathedral choirs stood at 165, also the highest number reported.
Cathedrals hosted 530 graduation ceremonies in 2022 with 434,000 people attending – the highest numbers ever reported. There were more marriage services in Cathedrals in 2022 (290) than in 2019 (270). Both the graduation and marriage figures reflect efforts that have been made, where possible, to catch up after the lifting of Covid restrictions.
These 2022 figures have been published following a survey by The Times of 30 Church of England Cathedrals that found congregations at Christmas (2023) for many, were higher than pre-pandemic levels.
6 CommentsThe Church of England’s General Synod will meet in London from Friday 23 to Tuesday 27 February. The agenda (GS 2332) and papers were released today. The report of the Business Committee (GS 2333) includes a guide to the group of sessions.
The papers can be downloaded as two zipped files, and there are links to individual papers below the fold.
26 Comments