Unpopular things that I think and say #3

Comments

20 responses to “Unpopular things that I think and say #3”

1. 

   Kelvin

   08/01/2010

   Thanks David

   Again, I can only say that I am supportive of Canon 4.10. (How could I not be, we all make promises to work under the Canons?).

   However, for 4.10 to work, people have to be nominated. I still maintain that there is the world of difference between the bishops meeting, considering actual names, presumably having to actually vote, having their decisions to be recorded in a set of minutes and the arbitrary declaration that some people simply need not apply.

   Questions were raised at the last meeting which have not found answers yet.

   Is this legal? Who can know without the ghastly prospect of making a challenge through court or tribunal. Will the Bishops publish the legal advice which Bishop David told us they had received? No, he has refused to do so. Is it right? Well, I don’t think so, and I don’t really feel any way of finding it in myself to suddenly say that it is.

   Is this a moratorium against gay clergy or only against out gay clergy? Is it against clergy in Civil Partnerships (with or without sex) or is it against all same-sex relationships? Do you become less acceptable for Episcopal office the more publicly your relationship has been blessed?

   Most of these questions were raised at the first meeting of the Electoral Synod and they still urgently need to be answered.

   I agree that the prospects of a diocese divided and a new bishop in a next to impossible position are grim. However, I think we are pretty close to that position now.

   If we don’t all agree at this stage of the process that it has been conducted fairly and in accordance with the Canons of our church, then already something is far wrong.

   Just for the record, David, what do you think Canon 4.33 is about if it is not about ensuring that clergy cannot be deemed ineligible to be nominated for any reason other than an inability to make the canonical assents?

   Reply
2. 

   Elizabeth

   08/01/2010

   It seems to me that the issue of Canon Law (nevermind the particulars of the current G and G election process, i.e. spending more time on discussion of moratoria than on the needs of the Diocese seems unfair to the preparatory committee, as Kelvin indicated) turns on the relationship of Canon 4.10 and 4.33. Now I know very little about Canon Law, but I’m will to hazard that one Canon can’t trump another and that therefore Canon 4.33 *requires* that Canon 4.10 be interpreted to apply to particular individuals on a submitted list, rather than determining that a whole set of priests is unsuitable a priori. The latter interpretation would mean that Canon 4.10 and Canon 4.33 were in conflict, while the former wouldn’t.

   And David B’s picture of the potential consequences is indeed dismaying, but that seems to me to be the responsibility of the College of Bishops as a consequence of signing up to the moratoria and imposing a ban, not of Kelvin for pointing it out.

   Reply
   1. 

      kelvin

      08/01/2010

      Thanks Elizabeth

      Just in case anyone wants to read Canon 4 for themselves, I’ve put a copy online here.

      I’d welcome anyone’s views on what 4.33 means. My guess is that it is not there for equal opportunities purposes but was probably inserted to ensure that no-one could be excluded from the process because of either their churchmanship or their view on the ordination of women. However, I’d be very interested to hear from anyone involved in drafting it what they thought it meant.

      The fact is, the way it is drafted, it still seems to me to mitigate against there developing any class of priest in this church which is ineligable for nomination.

      The sections that we have been discussing above are:
      [4].10. ASSENT OF THE COLLEGE OF BISHOPS
      Prior to the meeting of the Preparatory Committee at which the list of names of
      candidates is agreed, the College of Bishops shall have been consulted. The name
      of any person who is not agreed as acceptable by the College of Bishops may not
      be included in the list of names of candidates. The reasons for such decisions
      shall be recorded in the minutes of the College of Bishops, which minutes shall be
      confidential. Such members of the Preparatory Committee as are bishops shall be
      charged by the College of Bishops with informing the Preparatory Committee of
      the unacceptability of any proposed candidate. The appearance of any name on
      the list of names of candidates shall be regarded as evidence that that name is
      acceptable to the College of Bishops.

      [4].33. PROMISES TO AND STATEMENTS BY CANDIDATES
      No promises, either written or spoken, other than the subscriptions prescribed in
      Canon 12 shall be required from or given by any person as a condition of proposal
      as candidate for the bishopric or election as Bishop.

      No person who has been proposed as candidate for the bishopric shall make any
      public statement, spoken or written, relating to that candidacy or to the
      proceedings of the election other than as provided in these Canons.

      Reply
3. 

   Elizabeth

   08/01/2010

   Sorry Kelvin, I posted my comment before seeing yours and you have (far more eloquently) anticipated my point here. However, as Kimberly points out, numerous voices may be no bad thing on this matter.

   Reply
4. 

   Rosemary Hannah

   08/01/2010

   I think Elizabeth’s comment that the responsibility lies with the body signing the moratoria is a good one. The moral responsibility must. But while not wanting to seem in any way to drag my heels over issues like this, I don’t have even a good working lay knowledge of law.

   Morally, and I can only speak morally, it seems disgraceful that the SEC is acting against the consciences of so many in it. Or rather, that is is denying those who are elected as our representatives the right to act in line with the judgements and values they are there to exercise. It does make a nonsense of the whole matter of election, doesn’t it?

   Forgive my ignorance – given that bishops change regularly, how long do agreements signed by other bishops of the same church bind their successors? It is like the good ship Argos – not a plank of the original remained, but it was still the same ship. I would feel quite differently I think, if I thought our hierarchy were in a horrible bind they had not created, to how I would feel were they wilfully choosing a fundamentally unjust path.

   Reply
   1. 

      kelvin

      08/01/2010

      Thanks Rosemary.

      The moratorium dates from March last year and all the current bishops were members of the College of Bishops when it was put in place. It is a deliberately and wilfully chosen path and could be removed by tomorrow if the bishops agreed amongst themselves to remove it.

      Having said that, I do acknowledge that the Bishops might well feel as though they are in a horrible bind. They presumably feel that they must be loyal to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s call for the moratorium.

      Reply
5. 

   Kimberly

   08/01/2010

   I want to pick up on the point that David B made in his first comment — distinguishing between what the bishops had decided, and what the diocese should feel beholden to in making nominations.

   I was quite taken with the idea that one way to respond to the current situation was for people nominating candidates to totally disregard the moratoria, and nominate any person they believed fit for the job: gay or straight, partnered or single, male or female…

   It’s tempting. And I rather like the idea of a nominating committee being awash with diverse candidates, including those who challenge the moratoria.

   The problem is that to seek such a course of action asks an almost unimaginable sacrifice of a person who is gay and with a partner (or gay and hoping one day to be with a partner) because the candidate has to give their consent to the process — has to say they are willing to stand.

   This means that they not only willing become a test case, but they do so in defiance of the bishops’ instructions. That means they are perceived to be ‘in for a fight’ which is quite a different thing to allowing your name to go forward on equal footing with other candidates.

   I suspect that to consent to stand under those circumstances would not only bring pain in the short term (through the process, and through the upsetting effect on the person’s existing congregation) but would jeopardize any future call the the episcopacy when/ if the moratoria have been abandoned.

   I can’t imagine asking anyone to bear that cost, just to show that the diocese if free to nominate whom they like.

   We are all bound by the effect of the bishops accepting the moratoria, even if there are technical loop holes.

   Having said all that — I want to echo Kelvin’s last paragraph. It can’t be easy to be a bishop right now and have to find a way through the mire.

   Reply
6. 

   Rosemary Hannah

   08/01/2010

   I think there are times when one must be cautious of people – not encourage them to make too big a sacrifice.

   It may well be that the whole matter of the so-called Covenant may simplify or in some way resolve matters. I hope and trust that it falls totally, but if the C of E does sign it (and more conformist friends south of the border seem worryingly positive about it) I trust that at least the SEC will not sign, which may free the bishops. But they must also hear conservative voices in our own church.

   My generation were reared to see any kind of split or schism in the church as the most terrible betrayal of Christ. I am very grateful I am not a bishop. If I were, however, I would go and read prophets and the gospels, and take heart from all those troublers of Israel.

   Reply
7. 

   David Bayne

   09/01/2010

   I haven’t been in hiding from the discussion of the past 24 hours. Given the current freeze-up, I decided it was prudent to drive the 100 miles to Glasgow yesterday to be sure of getting to today’s Synod, and have been out of blogshot.

   A reliance on 4.33 as a kind of counter-balance to 4.10 genuinely baffles me. As helpfully detailed above, 4.33 consists of only 2 sentences: the second is a fairly standard, and, I’d have thought, sensible gag on candidates speaking in public about the election; the first tries to ensure that potential nominees are not in any way beholden to their proposers. Neither seems to me to bear in any way upon a partnered gay priest’s right to be nominated or upon the College of Bishops’ right to reject the candidacy of that person or any other, under 4.10. Am I misreading something?

   I’m not sure, either, that I buy a distinction in kind between vetoing an individual and vetoing a group whose members could only be nominated as individuals. The College’s right is unqualified. My objection would be to a conclusion that, the Bishops having chosen to exercise their veto, “the SEC has banned partnered gay clergy from standing for Bishop”. No, it has not – although (to echo Kimberly) it’s difficult to imagine why anyone in their right mind might allow themselves to be tortured in such a way.

   Reply
8. 

   kelvin

   09/01/2010

   I think it is very similar to the difference between someone who happens to be black being deemed unsuitable for a particular role or post and saying no-one who is black will ever succeed in a selection process.

   Reply