| DESPITE concerns about the unpredictable cost of training new clergy, Church of England bishops do not want to put a cap on the number of people being accepted for training.
This is one of the details from a leaked internal document in which a number of bishops question whether new recruits to the clergy are up to the job.
The document, produced by the Ministry Division, was leaked to The Sunday Telegraph. It includes a survey of the House of Bishops, conducted last December. Although 83 per cent say that they are confident in the skills of those being ordained, they express concerns about the nature of training for contemporary ministry.
More concerns seem to be felt about older clergy. According to the press report, one third of bishops fear that up to half the clergy lack the necessary gifts to cope with parish life.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that, according to the bishops, poor pay might be discouraging the best candidates. It said that the Archbishops’ Council was investigating the mindset and motivation of those seeking ordination, reassessing the criteria for selection, and considering if pay and post-retirement housing were putting off recruits.
One unnamed bishop said this week that anxieties focused on whether clergy had the skills to manage increasingly large and complex teams. “Running a team of lay volunteers and being the only professional is very different from managing and motivating a team with, perhaps, other stipendiary clergy in it, a couple of OLMs, and experienced churchwardens.”
He welcomed the drive to recruit younger ordinands, but wondered how they would gain the necessary experience, given that most now serve just one term as a curate.
“It’s important that the House [of Bishops] looks to see that the clergy have the right skills.”
Canon Terry Joyce, director of ordinands (DDO) and curate training for the diocese of Southwell & Nottingham, said this week that the Telegraph article did not reflect his experience. “I believe the selection process that is in place is now more demanding and accountable than ever before.
“I have very slight misgivings about candidates in the upper age range, but I do not see this as a significant ‘quality’ problem.”
The Revd Peter Clement, DDO for Ripon & Leeds, said that the main difference was that “many new ordinands are middle-aged women who do not have a university degree.
“If they were 20 or 30 years younger, they would have degrees, but they don’t have the paperwork and that makes a difference. But they are flowering in the context of learning, because they have not had this opportunity before. These women have a very strong sense of commitment.”
He went on: “Just to look at the statistics can be very unhelpful unless lots of other factors are taken into account. Taking all the factors into account, the quality of clergy is going up.” Furthermore, he said, “I have never had anyone tell me they were put off either by the housing or by the stipend once they had made enquiries.”
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