A SHORTER and simpler form
of legislation to enable women to be consecrated as bishops is
envisaged by the working group that has been convened to advise the
House of Bishops (
News, 21/28 December). It is suggested that this might be
compatible with achieving "a greater sense of security" for
opponents.
A consultation document,
under the signature of the Secretary General of the General Synod,
William Fittall, was issued to all members of the Synod last
Friday. It sets out "ideas and issues that are beginning to emerge"
after "facilitated discussions" on Tuesday and Wednesday of last
week.
The ten members of the
working group who took part in the discussions were joined by 15
additional participants, including representatives of Forward in
Faith, the Catholic Group, the National Association of Diocesan
Advisers in Women's Ministry (NADAWM), Reform, the Church Society,
and WATCH; and six individuals, including the Revd Janet Appleby,
who produced the "Appleby amendment" (
News, 14 September) to the draft Measure that fell in November.
These 15 are to continue to contribute to the group's work.
On Tuesday, Mrs Appleby said
that she felt "more positive than I did ten days ago that we might
achieve real progress". She cautioned, however, that "we must not
underestimate the real difficulties in trying to legislate for
mutually incompatible views to be held together on a 'first-order'
issue, which seems to strike more deeply at the heart of our faith
than other tensions we manage to hold successfully within the
Church of England."
She suggested that "trying
to be too precise and clear in all our wording can create more
problems than it solves," and called for a new framework that "both
depends on and increases trust, and allows for grace and
flexibility in detailed implementation".
The Revd Rosemary
Lain-Priestley, who chairs NADAWM, said that the participants had
"disagreed rigorously in an atmosphere of attentive respect. . . It
did feel like progress. Whatever comes to Synod in July will be
provisional and incomplete, but it may be a significant step
forward."
The chairman of Reform,
Prebendary Rod Thomas, another participant, said that the
discussions had "demonstrated that it is possible to think about
legislation for women bishops with an entirely different
approach".
Martin Dales of the Catholic
Group said on Monday that the Group was "cautiously optimistic",
and that it was "committed to do everything we can to ensure the
safe and speedy passage of fresh legislation through the
Synod".
The consultation document
sets our four propositions. The first is that the draft Measure
that fell at the November General Synod must be abandoned: "it
would not be sensible to try to take the rejected draft Measure as
a starting point and tweak it. . . Though so narrowly lost, its
moment has passed."
The second proposition is
that "any new approach should not seek to reopen questions around
jurisdiction and the position of the diocesan bishop, in law, as
the ordinary and chief pastor of everyone in the diocese." Any
transfer or sharing of jurisdiction risks "introducing confusion
where there needs to be clarity", and "any notion of a two-tier
episcopate is anathema".
The third proposition is
that "there needs, so far as possible, to be a complete package of
proposals that can be assessed in its entirety before final
approval, without the possibility of further amendments to some
parts of it between the final approval of the legislation and its
coming into force."
The fourth proposition,
described as "arguably the most important and also the most
subtle", is that "From the recent conversations it is clear that
any new package needs to try, so far as possible, to achieve two
things. While at first sight they appear to be in tension with each
other, they may in fact offer a possible way forward."
The two objectives that the
proposition identifies are: "Produce a shorter, simpler Measure
than the one that was defeated; Provide, through the totality of
the elements in the package, a greater sense of security for the
minority as having an accepted and valued place in the Church of
England while not involving the majority in any new element of
compromise on matters of principle."
The document acknowledges
that there remain "significant differences of view" in the working
group, which are not easily reconciled in a "polarised"
environment. It sets out the arguments for and against the two
polarities: the emphasis on "trust rather than enforceable
safeguards"; and the desire for "key relevant provisions" for
opponents to be written into the Measure itself.
It hints that the sympathies
of the House of Bishops are likely to lie with the former. It
states that the second approach would not "sit very easily" with
the House of Bishops' statement on 11 December (
News, 14 December), which called for a new legislative package
of "greater simplicity".
The document also warns of
the Church of England's "general tendency of going in for too much
regulation and prescription", and a concern that, the more
substantial and complex any Measure is, "the more anguished and
hesitant the Church of England risks being over a development that,
for most people within the Church of England, should be a cause of
affirmation and joy."
It warns that such a Measure
may not command the support of those who voted for the November
Measure despite their considering it to be "at the limits of
acceptable compromise and complexity". It also refers to a "real
risk that Parliament might baulk at approving a Measure that seemed
too elaborate and hedged about".
Although the document speaks
of urgency, the group has concluded that "further consultation is
needed over the next few weeks." Members of the General Synod will
have until 28 February to respond to the consultation, and their
contribu-tions will be reviewed at the next meeting of the working
group on 4 March.
Last Friday, the Bishop of
St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, the Rt Revd Nigel Stock, who chairs
the group, said that he had been "very impressed by the honesty,
openness and commitment" of participants. A desire had emerged, he
said, for "a change of behaviour on all sides, so that the
atmosphere can be created in which people can be constructive
rather than defensive".
The discussions had been
facilitated by a team headed by the Canon Director for
Reconciliation Ministry at Coventry Cathedral, David Porter, and
participants had been "hugely encouraged" by both the Archbishop of
York's and the Archbishop of Canterbury's presiding at holy
communion at the start of each day, and "lending their support and
encouragement to what happened later".
Women to join House of Bishops. Eight
senior women clergy will participate in all meetings of the House
of Bishops and its standing committee until there are six female
members of the House, it was announced on Thursday of last
week.
After a special meeting at
Lambeth Palace that day to review progress on enabling women to
become bishops "at the earliest possible date", the House announced
that eight women would be elected regionally from within bishops'
senior-staff teams (including deans and archdeacons) as
"participant observers", permitted to attend and speak at
meetings.
It also agreed to a special meeting on 19 September, when the
College of Bishops and a group of senior female clergy will meet to
"take forward the range of cultural and practical issues about
gender and ministry in the Church of England" arising from the
"Transformations" initiative launched at Lambeth in 2011 (
News, 23 September 2011).