The Questions (and Answers) for next week’s meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod were published today. The Question session (on Tuesday afternoon) will be devoted to supplementary questions.
Questions Notice Paper November 2021
Question 3 Notice Board
Question 13 Notice Board – page 1
Question 13 Notice Board – page 2
Question 88 Notice Board
The answer to Q125 is particularly unwelcome as it means that some newly elected members may be unable to join this inaugural meeting. I would also have thought that reasonable adjustments would have to be made for those who might be clinically vulnerable, for example.
Question 55 is salutary: “The Revd Fiona Jack (London) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops: “Prior to women being ordained to the episcopate there were women invited as participant observers to meetings of the House of Bishops, and in the report From Lament to Action the same is envisaged for people of colour. What plans are being formulated to allow openly LGBTQIA+ people similar access and participation given that much of the LLF process is about our status in the Church?” The Bishop of London to reply on behalf of the Chair of the House of Bishops:… Read more »
The inclusion of openly LGBTQIA+ people, whether simply in the room or participating more fully, seems like an obvious way to stop talking ‘about’ some of our fellow church members. If not at the House of Bishops, then how about in the Next Steps Group meetings? Gender… race… sexuality.
There is the need to read between the lines here. The key word is “openly”.
There are, of course, a number of LGBTQIA+ Bishops already in the House, probably way more than the six suggested here. But they are not open about their status, at least in public. Hence the request for additional representation by people able and willing to be honest and open.
Q45 – I hope Jonathan Baird is going to call out Dame Sarah Mullaly’s semantic circumlocution here. ‘We don’t know yet if the Government’s decision to close places of worship for public worship and individual prayer at the beginning of the lockdown will be a subject of the enquiry.’ Just to remind everyone what we already know, it was not the Government’s decision. It was the Church’s decision (complete with threats of disciplinary action from the diocesan Bishop in at least one diocese) even though the government offered the option of keeping churches open for private prayer and for the… Read more »
This is not quite right. The government closed churches for public worship. It was the archbishops who went further and prevented clergy entering their own churches e.g. for broadcasting worship led by themselves alone.
They were allowed to check on the church boiler but were forbidden from lingering to say their prayers.
Bill Broadhead is correct. The Church of England ie both Archbishops and the bishop of London had plenty of notice and time to fight their corner, but jumped the gun by ordering public worship to cease more than a week before national lockdown. Archbishop Welby stated publicly in mid March 2020 that public worship is not essential and church buildings are not essential. Not a single bishop corrected him. The Church of England declined last month to publish any meaningful statistics for 2020. Will they try to do the same in October 2022, so as to hide the catastrophic avoidable… Read more »
Thank you, Michael. The Government’s own account is that it offered for churches to stay open for personal prayer. We have Cardinal Nichols to thank for letting that particular cat out of the bag, rather than trusting the Downing Street (or Lambeth or Old Deanery or Luther Pendragon) narrative.