Premature celebrations

The Jackson/Wigley Morgan partnership

Following the Church in Wales Governing Body vote to allow women to become bishops their Archbishop,  Dr Barry Morgan, said, "While we, as bishops, welcome the decision that women can now be ordained as bishops in Wales, we recognise that there are some people who do not. We want to make sure that adequate provision is made for them so that they will still feel valued and accepted in the Church and will continue to worship and minister alongside us.  We have been entrusted to draw up a Code of Practice within a year and we are keen to consult as widely as possible with church members in order to reflect their views as best we can." [My emphasis - Ed.]

Under the Bench of Bishops' original Bill, as soon as practicable after the promulgation of the Canon the Bench had to establish a Working Party which would (a) invite, receive and consider proposals for a scheme of provision for Members of the Church in Wales who, for reasons of conscience, dissent from the provisions of section 1 of the Bill to permit women bishops and (b) produce recommendations to the Bench of Bishops for such scheme of provision.

Recommendations made pursuant to the provisions of subsection (1) of the Bill and agreed by the Bench of Bishops were to be included in a Bill introduced into the Governing Body of the Church in Wales within two years of the promulgation of the original Bill. 

That commitment seemed clear. An accommodation similar to that being worked on in the Church of England would allow all members of the Church the opportunity to flourish but having achieved their primary objective of allowing women to be admitted to the Episcopate through the Jackson/Wigley Amendment, that commitment under a voluntary Code of Practice is already looking pretty thin, adding to the suspicion that the Amendment merely provided Dr Morgan with the opportunity to maintain his position that there would be alternative pastoral and sacramental provision 'over his dead body' despite the costly charade of inviting submissions and organising diocesan meetings throughout the Province to receive and consider proposals for alternative provision.

As the date to allow women bishops draws near, arrangements have been made to celebrate the success of the women bishops campaign - jumping the gun in the process. For those who wish to remain true to the Catholic faith there is not even a whisper of what the bishops have in mind. According to Credo Cymru (here) the bishops' scheme will be presented as a fait accompli after women bishops become legal in the Church in Wales. 

This is contrary to the spirit of the amendment to the Bill which, according to the accompanying explanatory notes (here), aimed for a shortened one-year lead time from the previous two years to:-

a) impart a sense of urgency to the Bench that a Code of Practice should be agreed 

without delay, but 

b) provide a period of time in which the Bench may reassure as wide a range of 

people as possible of their good faith, and desire to give a sense of security in the 

future, to individuals holding different views. 

The amendment sought "explicitly to restore the relationship of Trust between the
body of the Church in Wales and the Bench of Bishops, and to reassert the desire
for this trust to lie at the heart of the bishops’ ministry and their role as a focus for
unity."

There has been no sense of urgency or reassurance of a sense of security for the future of those members of the Church for whom provision has to be made under the Code of Practice. It remains to be seen if good faith suffers a similar fate.

The decision to allow women bishops was greeted at Governing Body with wild applause. No doubt there will be similar expressions of ecstasy at the Crossing the Threshold event in Llandaff on 4 September which ends with a Eucharist at 7.45pm in Llandaff Cathedral when the President will be the Rt Rev’d Geralyn Wolf of the US Episcopal Church.

As she stands at the Altar, she and the congregation may wish to reflect on the fact that her presence there appears at this point in time to be as the result of a deception. Not good news or the best start for women in the Episcopacy in the Church in Wales!