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| "Mr Jones' licence is due to be revoked at the end of the year" Source: BBC |
LMAs are not a brilliant idea according to the bishop of St Davids. Well, she has her sponsor Barry Morgan to thank for that.
In her address to the St Davids diocesan conference she said, "Unfortunately we do not have the money to keep our normal, proper, well-tried, well-loved and best way of being local church which is having paid stipendiaries as near as possible to a few churches where they can get to know and love everybody. If we could do that. If God would supply us with the money then that is what I would do."
I don't know what the good people of in Cilcennin, Ystrad Aeron, Trefilan and Cribyn will make of that statement.
Their beloved priest, an 82-year-old retired vicar has been told that he can no longer carry out church services because he is "too old to be covered by insurance".
He has been voluntarily conducting services in the Aeron Valley because of a shortage of vicars. He believes the ruling will affect rural churches. "Two churches every Sunday will be short of a Minister to take a service" he said. "There are two of us that help out every Sunday. They will have to rely on lay people to take the service. I'm convinced it will close certain churches if they don't have a regular Minister."
The Rev'd John Emrys Jones who has already held 36 services this year said he was "disappointed" there was not a meeting between the Diocese and retired clergy affected by the decision.
One parishioner said churchgoers were "shocked" and "horrified" by the news. "We don't understand it. We feel they are one of us she said".
The Church in Wales has issued a statement saying: "There has now been further advice giving us hope a solution can be found, thereby allowing these people to continue their ministry within the Diocese."
St Davids is one of six dioceses in the Church in Wales with no sign of reduction as recommended in the Church in Wales (Harries) Review. All make use of retired clergy which makes the decision by bishop Joanna look personal. It has been suggested that it was her way of getting rid of traditionalist clergy.
Busily backpedaling after adverse publicity Joanna should have sought advice from her feminist friend in Llandaff. Bishop June is taking all her clergy on a jolly to Santiago de Compostela with all the insurance implications that involves.
Update
In an abrupt about turn the Church in Wales now says it is "confident" clergy are sufficiently insured "regardless of age".
BBC News reports that after receiving legal advice the church issued a new statement stating it was confident all clergy were sufficiently insured and would be able "to continue their valuable service, for which we are extremely grateful".
"We are writing to all those affected and we apologise for the upset and confusion caused," it said.
The Rev'd John Emrys Jones responded graciously. "I don't blame anybody... but there should have been a consultation by the diocese before sending out the letters," he said.
Quite right. A public relations disaster although it must be remembered that when the bishops consult they ignore the results if they don't like what they hear.
Without adverse publicity no doubt there would have been no change.
Their beloved priest, an 82-year-old retired vicar has been told that he can no longer carry out church services because he is "too old to be covered by insurance".
He has been voluntarily conducting services in the Aeron Valley because of a shortage of vicars. He believes the ruling will affect rural churches. "Two churches every Sunday will be short of a Minister to take a service" he said. "There are two of us that help out every Sunday. They will have to rely on lay people to take the service. I'm convinced it will close certain churches if they don't have a regular Minister."
The Rev'd John Emrys Jones who has already held 36 services this year said he was "disappointed" there was not a meeting between the Diocese and retired clergy affected by the decision.
One parishioner said churchgoers were "shocked" and "horrified" by the news. "We don't understand it. We feel they are one of us she said".
The Church in Wales has issued a statement saying: "There has now been further advice giving us hope a solution can be found, thereby allowing these people to continue their ministry within the Diocese."
St Davids is one of six dioceses in the Church in Wales with no sign of reduction as recommended in the Church in Wales (Harries) Review. All make use of retired clergy which makes the decision by bishop Joanna look personal. It has been suggested that it was her way of getting rid of traditionalist clergy.
Busily backpedaling after adverse publicity Joanna should have sought advice from her feminist friend in Llandaff. Bishop June is taking all her clergy on a jolly to Santiago de Compostela with all the insurance implications that involves.
Update
In an abrupt about turn the Church in Wales now says it is "confident" clergy are sufficiently insured "regardless of age".
BBC News reports that after receiving legal advice the church issued a new statement stating it was confident all clergy were sufficiently insured and would be able "to continue their valuable service, for which we are extremely grateful".
"We are writing to all those affected and we apologise for the upset and confusion caused," it said.
The Rev'd John Emrys Jones responded graciously. "I don't blame anybody... but there should have been a consultation by the diocese before sending out the letters," he said.
Quite right. A public relations disaster although it must be remembered that when the bishops consult they ignore the results if they don't like what they hear.
Without adverse publicity no doubt there would have been no change.
I know that car insurance from certain companies jumps up a lot when one reaches 80, so it may be the insurance was a few bob cheaper if the over 80s were outlawed, but anyone with a one twentieth of a scruple of compassion could forsee the outrage and hurt to souls; I guess neither that nor speaking Welsh was in her job description.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me like meanness just to put this in a letter when so many elderly clergy have given so much. I also wonder if it is the usual lies and deceit we all know our leaders spin, as suddenly it looks like there might be a solution!
ReplyDelete"There has now been further advice giving us hope a solution can be found, thereby allowing these people to continue their ministry within the Diocese."
If this was the truth, why hasn't every diocese in Wales and England followed suit!???? And what about the many chapels serviced by older ministers? They don't seem to have an issue.
I have been more disappointed that I can say with Joanna.She seems a nice lady: pleasant, candid and informal to converse with, but her opinions are very different - heterodox theology, with a fixation on gay rights and guilty of deeply hurtful actions with regard to faithful retired clergy. She should go into a penitential retreat as a result of the hurt she has done. I also know two female clerics in her diocese who, following her lead, have accused retired clergy offers being out of touch, and of resisting desirable change. ********! I fear that a backlash has produced the change. It is not an encouraging start.
ReplyDeleteIf the CinWs cannot treat its own priests better, it does not deserve to survive.
Rob
PP. The Church seems to find money for consultants provincial appointments new offices and yet cannot subsidise or broker insurance cover for retired who devout time and energy beyond the call of duty. Perhaps a reduction in diocese is in order.
ReplyDeleteIf indeed the bishop of St Davids and the CinWs are engaging in a volte-face on this matter, you Ancient Briton(s?) deserve much credit for allowing us to protest against such a deeply hurtful decision. I fear JP's inexperience and lack of common sense, not to say lack of charity, underlines the fact that she was a poor choice for St Davids. If this continues, we made find that she may have to go yet. She has committed a grave, serious and uncharitable error. It has been deeply hurtful to Christ'sfaithful servants. Also, it is AGEIST.
ReplyDeleteBob
So, to summarise, whoever made the stupid wench "aware" that there was no insurance cover for the over 80s was preaching through their backside!
ReplyDeleteThey should be summarily dismissed on the spot for ageism, deceit and bringing the Diocese and Church in Wales into disrepute.
Then the stupid wench should follow them through the door for ageism, failure to carry out due diligence and check her facts and bringing the Diocese and Church in Wales into disrepute.
The degree of demonstrated incompetence revealed by the Church in Wales climbdown is matched only by the bungled cover up in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The lack of morals and ethics however are eerily similar.
Bob is absolutely right.
ReplyDelete“She (Bishop Jo) has committed a grave, serious and uncharitable error. It has been deeply
hurtful to Christ's faithful servants. Also, it is AGEIST”
Also, it is an own goal.
All the money, whether spent on £10 million handouts for good ideas, expert advisers or team building jollies, haven't so far encouraged crowds of youngsters back to church. LGBT+ chaplains haven't brought many formerly persecuted victims flocking joyfully into churches longing to welcome them.
Most of the churches I know are full of the getting on a bit, the old, the very old and the downright decrepit. Most of us, to be honest, are old-fashioned, middle of the road Anglicans - neither Anglo Catholics nor Evangelicals. We have little interest in, and even less knowledge of anything to do with gender outside of grammar books.
Although the young find it impossible to believe we actually know a lot about sex; what works, physically, emotionally, morally, ethically and spiritually.
Above all, despite all the modern Anglican Church has thrown at us, we are still there. Anglican Misfit
Bishops should be appointed because they possess outstanding ability, wisdom, wide experience, deep theological insight and a pastoral heart, not because an archbishop wishes to make a point and follow the dictates of the politically correct spirit of the age.
ReplyDeleteRob
I have not seen anything much about this, apart from on the BBCs news page and on this b!og. Nothing on the St Davids or CinWs websites. The Western Mail, archbishop or Joanna. Something more definite needs to be said. Archbishop, where are you?
ReplyDeleteBob
So. Following mild interest by Radio Cymru the Wench of Abergwili now admits that the inability to obtain third party insurance cover was not an issue in attempting to deprive retired clergy of their ministry.
ReplyDeleteLIES - LIES - LIES!
Lack of insurance cover never was an issue. It was clearly a cover story for the blatant cleansing of male clergy from the Diocese of St. Davids.
1.Every victim of this cleansing would have been an elderly male.
2.Every victim of this cleansing would have been validly ordained by a validly consecrated male Bishop in the Apostolic Succession.
3.Every victim would have been a sterling, long term,role model of Faith, Fidelity and Family Life.
By their long term shining example the old and bold have attained a holiness in their Sacred Ministry that the secular and ill trained clerics of today can never aspire to.
That is why they had to go!
The "Mission" of the Church in Wales over the past 25 years has been a race to the bottom and it started from the top.
LMAs are not a good idea? Well, we now have a hard-hitting analysis of the Church in Wales's desperate attempts to 'do something' that has proved to be a wholesale failure. Leading Anglican academic, Dr David Goodhew, has just published a trenchant analysis of decline in Wales, Scotland and England.
ReplyDeletehttps://livingchurch.org/covenant/2018/10/22/mission-in-europe-and-the-future-of-anglicanism/
It's a damning indictment of the Golfer's dereliction of duty, as this covers exactly the period in which he has been a bishop.
One obvious detail that should not be overlooked is that there are two dioceses in the Church of England where there has been exponential growth: London and Europe. The fact that the Diocese in Europe's growth could soon make it numerically larger than the Church in Wales will come as no surprise to one former Archdeacon of Bangor who could see the writing on the wall, and moved to become an archdeacon in... yes, the Diocese in Europe!
I have just seen a photograph on Robin Ward's Facebook page, which I would have reproduced here if I had known how. The caption: "His Excellency Most Reverend Archbishop Bernardino Piñera Carvallo, Archbishop Emeritus of La Serena in Chile, celebrating the T[raditional] L[atin] M[ass]. He is currently 103 year-old and is one of the two Bishops promoted by the Venerable Pius XII who are still alive (the other is Colombian Cardinal Pimiento, 99 year-old)."
ReplyDeleteIs Joanna Penberthy's letter an example of the tender, motherly, feminine qualities that, allegedly, are lacking in traditional male ministry? They look to me more like the spiteful, petulant actions of a wayward schoolgirl. It gives me no pleasure to write in such terms, but her cruel action has caused incalculable and unnecessary pain to God's priests.Are there not scriptural verses indicating that whoever hurts 'you' hurts 'me'?
ReplyDeleteJoanna preaches competantly without a script, but her good humoured complacency and detachment, her absence of passion (see the diocesan conference address) is revealing. Despite a friendly and pleasant manner, the issues appear not to touch her heart. She needs to write her letter of resignation.
Shepherdess or (I was going to write) wolf? but that is too extreme, so let's say so imbued with politically correct 'feminism' and equality issues that she becomes capable of actions that are essentially cruel. A bishop: never.
Bob
Watching this clip again the bishop's actions are less surprising
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/bbcthehour/status/984798316457324546
See also
https://ancientbritonpetros.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-hour-has-come.html
and
https://ancientbritonpetros.blogspot.com/2018/04/its-hard.html
Thank you AB. The Watchman has, on this occasion, put the matter incomparably well. If retired clergy had any sense they would demonstrate outside the cathedral in their hundreds, chanting 'Retire Joanna, retire!'
ReplyDeleteRob
Joanna's ill-advised and damaging actions, followed by changes in the narrative, make her no better thean the Saudis trying to cover up the death of a journalist in Ankara or the Russian account of why two agents were in Salisbury. No prizes for guessing where she learned that modus operandii. Straight from the Book of the Master (Golfer).
ReplyDeleteJust read the David Goodhew article. Damning. And he has analysed the malaise in Bangor with Mission Areas perfectly. Goodbye Church in Wales....
York must be exhaling a sigh of relief, after this show of exceptionally poor judgment a translation in 2020 is nigh on impossible.
ReplyDeleteThis is at best incompetence of the highest order at worst a savage and petulant edict aimed at punishing the elderly men she blames for holding her back. Really sad state of affairs.
Exactly, Whamab! Someone who deliberately inflcts immeasurable hurt and stress upon Christ's faithful shepherds does not deserve to be a shepherdess herself, and one who lacks the basic administrative ability to get round an ALLEGED insurance hiccup ought not to be in a position of senior leadership and administration. CinWs Electoral College you made a huge mistake and allowed yourself to be wheedled out of better judgement. The diocese of St Davids must suffer the ill consequences. It is deeply troubling, and all for the sake of political correctness.
ReplyDeleteThomas
Most comments about Joanna Penberthy's hurtful action in preventing senior retired clergy in St Davids diocese from continuing with their ministry avoid unnecessary personal abuse, and instead show true insight into her deficiences: deficiences pastoral, theological, administrative and managerial, deficiences so serious and so great as to render her unsuitable (not to say unfit) for the role she occupies. Let's keep it that way. Let her return to Labour politics. There is a precedent in the person of a former archbishop of the Scottish episcopal Church.
ReplyDelete1984
Nasty letters to elderly congregants from the antiques-dealing dud in the Llandaff Deanery followed by nasty letters to elderly clergy from the wench in St. Davids?
ReplyDeleteTruly, truly I say unto you, the swamp spreadeth far and wide.
Maybe, Cymru Groes. However, the lamp of God hath not yet gone out in the temple. The old wench capitulated. Or so it seems.
ReplyDeleteCath yn rhechan.
She is not an 'old wench', nor is she odd-looking like many female clerics. She is the mother of four children who, I am sure, love her dearly. Yet she lacks a pastoral heart when she thinks she can clear out of her diocese some of the traditional male rubbish, as she views it, which hinders the spread of her new 'gospel'. This is a calculated fault of such severity that she will never be able to get over it, for it shows her in her true colours: one capable of causing deep and lasting hurt to the priests of Christ's Church. For her own sake, as well as for that of others, she should seriously consider her position. Return to the back benches, or enter politics if you must, but stop meddling with the gospel, halt the devastating attempts at bishoping.
ReplyDeleteRiley
Perhaps some diligent auditor found that insurance cover didn't cover over 80s clergy, in which case a quick phone could would have sorted it out. The only other alternative I can think of is the highly probable detestation of the old white blokes who are not 'on message' with her new religion.
ReplyDeleteDoes one have to be insured to celebrate the Eucharist? I wonder how the Apostles managed.
ReplyDeleteNo, you don't have to be insured to celebrate the Eucharist. But a bishop, according to the New Testament, is to be a person with no more than one wife. Have the bench made provision for some extra luggage?
DeleteCathrhech
PP, The paradigm is one of serious misgivings for the Church in Wales, built on the Golfers handbook of political correctness, petulance, bitchiness and falsehoods. Now, the once golden egg of a bright horizon and curdled, what is left is a swampy quagmire of sad leadership, leaving from soundbites.
ReplyDeleteOne cannot suggest that the two female bishops are in themselves not good women, even women who have abilities and skills to deploy, but as bishops, sex aside, the jury is still out, as the picture has clouded. We can blame the mentors, or electors, but the CiW does not have the robust screening like the CofE, or countenance of reliable mentors. There in lies much of the problem. Why? Because the pew sitters, GB do not have the clout to reign this tide back. The bench was never meant to be the super status it became under the last AB. Alwyn was right, spot on, as was his successor, but, what occurred was the travasty that we reap the benefits now.
Women bishops, do have a place, if we look at other nonconformist churches, they have had some very able and skilled female leaders. The CiW seem to have allowed political correctness and personal ego from a former leader to taint and so we reap now what was sowed then, and is meddled today.
The way back is for the pew sitter to shout and shout loudly, turning over the tables, taking charge of what was once the peoples Church.
Christ did not make women apostles. Why? The actions of modern women clerics are not demonstrating that he was mistaken.
ReplyDeleteBob
The only reason Jesus didn't have female apostles is because he didn't want one looking over his shoulder saying: "I wouldn't do it like that if I were you!"
DeleteMiss Ojiny
Why was she not sacked? I any other job it would have been 'the door' for such an inept employee.
ReplyDeleteCatnap.
Because she is a woman, and the Governing Body, like much of the country has embraced the assumptions of the spirit of the age, many of them driven by militant homosexuals in the media.
ReplyDeleteRob
One wonders where her "right-on" Archdeacon/Problem-creator (I mean *fixer*) was when this was sent? 'The One that Wonka forgot' is proving himself a liability yet again, after ruining his Haverfordwest Parish, then brown-nosing the previous occupant of the See of Dewi to become the Göring of the St Davids diocese?
ReplyDeleteDewi Resistance