Press release from the Church of England
House of Bishops’ Meeting – 6th June 2022
06/06/2022
The House of Bishops met on 6 June by Zoom.
Bishop Jill Duff was congratulated on her election as an elected suffragan to the House and Arun Arora was also congratulated on his appointment as Bishop of Kirkstall.
The Bishop of Fulham introduced a paper outlining the importance of Ecumenical texts and the proposal for a new and formalised process for their reception by the Church of England, with a particular emphasis on the role of Bishops as Guardians of the Faith. This follows recommendations by the Anglican Communion ecumenical body, IASCUFO, and the Anglican Consultative Council. The House agreed the approach set out in the paper.
The House then discussed the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) resource tentatively named The Gift of the Church and how the House will be offered opportunities to shape it once a draft version of the resource is shared in the coming weeks. The Gift of the Church is envisaged as an accessible, publicly available learning resource that supplements the LLF Book, and will be an additional resource for the bishops’ discernment process in autumn 2022.
The meeting concluded in prayer.
This seems to link with the recently published minutes of the latest meeting of the LLF Next Steps Group, available at LLF Next Steps Group Meeting on 03 May 2022 | The Church of England
I’m struck by the commendation of Bishop Arora, noting that there was no mention of Bishop Saner-Haigh whose appointment was announced on the same day. This is doubtless because AA already attends HoB meetings. But it jars. I must confess that in all my 72 years on planet earth I have never fathomed how betting works, but I’d wager a fair bit on AA being the next but one ABC. Ticks a lot of boxes. Grooming in action?
Yes it’s a little strange, but my guess is that ABC succession planning didn’t figure too highly. The House of Bishops of course is not the full College of bishops – the House comprises the diocesan bishops and General Synod elected suffragans, so there will be a focus on General Synod/ national business. I suspect Arun may have been an observer at the meeting, or in some way involved – he was/is the Co-Chair of the anti-racism taskforce, so an important national project, and of course involved for some years in the C of E comms himself. That would explain… Read more »
For Arun’s presence at the House of Bishops see this:
https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/press-releases/more-clergy-uk-minority-ethnic-backgrounds-join-house-bishops
The Gift of the the Church! You couldn’t make it up. Noting that it is tentative but regardless of that, some grouping actually thought that that phase communicated an appropriate message. Its a very closed bubble.
“tentatively”, ” opportunities to shape”, “draft version”
And all it is is another bit of writing supposedly resourcing something or other.
The whole thing dribbles on and on for ever……
Who has Jill Duff (Bishop of Lancaster) replaced as an elected suffragan? According to the Church of England website, the six elected suffragans are the Bishop of Aston (Anne Hollinghurst), Bishop of Dorking (Jo Bailey Wells), Bishop of Hull (Alison White), Bishop of Ripon (Helen-Ann Hartley), Bishop of Sherborne (Karen Gorham) and Bishop of Taunton (Ruth Worsley). Which bishop has Dr Duff replaced?
Alison White has retired.
I think there may be some confusion here between the nine elected suffragans (who are members of the House) and the six women suffragans listed by Ann who are not members but attend.
One of the nine elected suffragans was Jonathan Gibbs, the bishop of Huddersfield, who is moving to become the (diocesan) bishop of Rochester. I assume that Jill Duff is replacing him.
I think you are right, Peter, and I was going to make that point in reply to Ann. At the GS election last October there were five candidates for the four suffragan bishop places representing the Northern province, and Jill Duff was the one candidate who failed to be elected. Under the Synod rules, where a casual vacancy occurs within 2 years of a general election, rather than have a by-election, there is a recount of the results, omitting the candidate whose ‘translation’ (in this case), namely Jonathan Gibbs, has caused the vacancy. As there was only the one unsuccessful… Read more »
Thank you Peter and Simon. The Church of England website could be a lot clearer. They don’t list the elected members, but do list those attending.