THE Crown Nominations Commission considering the nomination of the next Bishop of Ely has not been able reach a consensus, the Archbishop of Canterbury announced on Monday.
The statement said that it was “not likely” that the discernment process would begin again until the Spring of 2025. “Together with the Archbishop of York and others, there will also need to be a period of reflection on the implications of this decision on the Church of England more generally,” the Archbishop said.
The Crown Nominations Commission first met on 3 May to carrying out a shortlisting, one year after it was announced that the previous Bishop of Ely, the Rt Revd Stephen Conway, had been appointed the next Bishop of Lincoln, having been the Acting Bishop of that diocese for more than a year (News, 26 May 2023). The CNC met again on Thursday and Friday of last week to conduct interviews.
The announcement follows a similar one in December, when it was confirmed that the CNC had been unable to agree on the next Bishop of Carlisle, and that a new nomination was unlikely to be made for more than a year (News, 22 December).
Archbishop Welby told the General Synod last week of “unprecedented demand in the senior appointments system”. Through questions, members have been raising concerns about the functioning of the system, and the backlog that has built up. In February, Canon Simon Talbott, the Bishop of Ely’s senior chaplain, and a member of Ely’s is vacancy-in-see committee, asked the Archbishop of Canterbury for assurances “that further reflection on the current arrangements for the CNC will be undertaken”. The Archbishop said that the CNC had been “comprehensively reviewed in the previous quinquennium of the General Synod and there is no further formal review planned” (News, 19 January 2018).
The Commission, which nominates diocesan bishops to the Crown, comprises both Archbishops, six representatives from the diocese, and six members of the General Synod. The Standing Orders stipulate that a two-thirds majority must be reached for a new bishop to be nominated, meaning that, if five members vote against an appointment, it can be blocked. It is understood that, in Ely, the leading candidate secured no more than eight or nine votes.
The news from Carlisle prompted questions about whether the lack of consensus was related to the Living in Love and Faith process. The meeting of the CNC there was held just one day after the House of Bishops formally commended new prayers of blessing for same-sex couples (News, 12 December). General Synod voting figures from the February debate on the topic showed that four of the six people elected to the CNC from each House voted against the motion.
In Ely, the last CNC meeting took place three days after the General Synod voted narrowly to remove impediments to the use of these same-sex blessings in stand-alone services, and to provide delegated episcopal ministry for opponents of the changes (News, 12 July 2024). Voting figures are not yet available.
Four of the six CNC members elected by the Ely is vacancy-in-see committee are also members of General Synod. Voting figures from February 2024 show that, of the four, two voted in favour of an amendment acknowledging that “some of the issues raised are not matters on which they can simply agree to disagree”, while two voted against (News, 1 March 2024).
The diocese’s Statement of Needs sought someone who “has worked and will continue to work constructively with the Living in Love and Faith process and will respond sensitively to the widely divergent views within the Diocese, both modelling and requiring honesty, openness, willingness to listen and humility, seeking common ground as we learn together how to live with difference and put into practice the mutual love to which we are called.”
A section on finance mentioned “obvious uncertainties about our giving base, not least around the possible withholding of Ministry Shares in the light of some possible LLF outcomes”.
The statement also specified someone who would not only ordained women but who “affirms fully in all respects the ministry of women, and can demonstrate such support”. The diocese had, it said, the highest proportion of female stipendiary clergy of any diocese and the second highest proportion of female clergy.
The statement was frank about the challenges facing the diocese, noting that the diocesan plan, Ely 2025: People Fully Alive, had “failed to reverse the decline in attendance. Our new Bishop will have to consider how to address the decline and whether a further period of centralised planning is likely to be the most effective tool to deploy.”
The Bishop of Huntingdon, Dr Dagmar Winter, is currently serving as the diocese’s acting bishop. The Archbishop’s statement on Monday said that he would be speaking to her “in order to understand from her the best way of supporting the Diocese of Ely and her episcopal ministry in the coming months”.
Dr Winter was among the Bishops who last year issued a statement expressing their hope that pastoral guidance allowing priests to be in same-sex marriages would be issued “without delay”, as was Bishop Conway (News, 3 November 2023).
In 2015, the CNC failed to reach an agreement in the diocese of Oxford (News, 22 May 2015).
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