FATHER PAUL writes ... - July/August 2008
July and August are holiday months. This is traditionally the time when the pressure comes off. Schools close, beaches fill up and the air is heavy with the smell of barbeques. Everyone makes a real effort to chill out. How I wish I could match the seasonal mood by writing about something cheerful and relaxing! But I can’t. Why not? Because July is the month when the General Synod meets.
The main item on the agenda for this month’s synod is a consideration of the so-called Manchester Report. This is the outcome of the Bishop of Manchester’s working party, which has been meeting for many months to talk about how the Church of England should proceed over the ordination of women as bishops. All schools of thought were represented on the working party, and the quality of the report is very good. It sets before the Synod, and the wider Church, a number of options. It also asks some questions, the most important of which is: what kind of church does the Church of England want to be? Does it want to be inclusive? Does it have space for minorities?
The issue now is not whether women should be ordained as bishops in the Church of England: logic, justice and theological consistency (there are already many women priests) suggest strongly that they should. The Synod has asked for legislation to allow this, and the process should go ahead. No: the real issue now is what happens to those who continue to be conscientiously opposed to women bishops. Are they welcome or not? Are they to be given a structure that enables them to stay within the Church of England or not? Are they to be treated as valued and equal members of the Church, in spite of their minority views (as promised repeatedly in the early 1990’s)? Or are they to be merely tolerated on the assumption (even in the hope) that they will soon die out, and therefore stop bothering everyone else?
It seems that the bishops, who have already met to consider the report and make recommendations to the Synod, favour a single-clause measure that would provide only a code of practice for protecting conscientious objectors. Many people, including me, are convinced that this is no protection at all. Only a legal structure would provide us with the space to remain within the Church of England. We need our own bishops exercising proper jurisdiction within separate dioceses or a separate province. Otherwise we shall be quite literally unchurched.
It remains to be seen what the Synod decides. The signs are not good. My feeling at the moment is that the Church into which I was baptized, in which I was subsequently ordained and which has been my spiritual home for nearly 60 years no longer wants me. If it will not listen to me, if it goes back on the firm promise it made 15 years ago that I would have a permanent, respected and assured place in its life and work, then I think I get the message, which is not a loving or generous one. The words I’m beginning to hear from the bishops (and perhaps from the Synod, too) are: you’re not welcome. Be satisfied with what you’re offered and stop complaining. Or clear off.
And I’m not the only one who feels like this. Is the Church of England prepared to wave goodbye to thousands of loyal clergy and lay people? Only time will tell.
Again, I apologize for striking such a gloomy note. As I write this I look out of the window and see the sun shining on the roses and the S. John’s Wort. What a beautiful summer day it is. The people of S. Francis are still there to be loved and served. And yet I cannot escape from what is happening in the Church of England. I wonder what God has in store for me.