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| The bishops of St Davids, Monmouth (bishop-elect) and Llandaff Source: Twitter |
"When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?" - At the Sacred Synod regardless.
Following the announcement that the Ven Cherry Vann had been elected bishop of Monmouth she tweeted: "Absolutely thrilled to be joining these wonderful women on the bench of Bishops in the Church in Wales.
Perhaps she was less than thrilled to be joining the three male bishops on the bench!
Perhaps she was less than thrilled to be joining the three male bishops on the bench!
It had long been rumoured that the bishop of Lancaster, Jill Duff, would be the 11th bishop of Monmouth but not so. Presumably her CV did not match the expectations of the bench.
In her first interview after her election the Ven Cherry Vann told the South Wales Argus: "I found out I had been elected at about 2.30pm on the Thursday afternoon [when] I got a call from Archbishop John".
A little over half-an-hour later at 3.08pm the Archbishop announced that the bishop elect was Cherry Vann, Archdeacon of Rochdale.
Ms Vann is not a member of the Electoral College. The Cathedral would have been locked so she must have been hovering in the vicinity. Cynics may wonder how the archdeacon came to be in Newport for the announcement. Another episcopal stitch up?
What could the Electoral College have found so attractive about the Archdeacon of Rochdale? Few in the Church in Wales would have heard of her apart from the bishops and special interest groups such as Mae Cymru.
Contrary to sentiments expressed by Ms Vann and the Archbishop of Wales in a video message after the announcement, in her first newspaper interview Ms Vann said: "This is a very different province to the Church of England, and it works differently. I am aware that I have a lot to learn both about the church and how it works, but also about the past and what I am inheriting.
“I am also aware that the church is struggling to be relevant in people’s lives. I want to work with people to find ways of communicating, what is essentially, a message of love and hope to people who find the institutional church difficult or inaccessible.
“Institutions do not find it easy to change. I think what we have got, not just in Monmouth but right across the established churches, is an organisation that is struggling to meet the demands of the present age. An age where religion is seen as irrelevant at best and people do not understand what it is about. That is a huge challenge for everyone.”
There must be priests in Wales and beyond, even Welsh speaking, who do not have a lot to learn both about the church and how it works, about the past and what the bishop is inheriting so it appears that more weight was attached to supporting 'an organisation struggling to meet the demands of the present age'.
No doubt being relevant to society is why Ms Vann is absolutely thrilled to be joining the "wonderful women" on the bench of Bishops as they pursue their secular cause.
Now there are three.
Of course, it is NOT 'religion' that is seen as 'irrelevant' (just ask our Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist brothers and sisters) BUT rather the Christian church … so there is a need to ask why this is so … could it be the absolutely secular mindset that the hierarchy of the church seem to have adopted in their entirety?
ReplyDelete(NotGoneYet)
Cherry was elected because she met the two predetermined criteria for appointment. She was a woman and she was in a civil partnership. It certainly wasn't because of her CV which was B+ at best compared to so many others more qualified, more talented, more holy candidates who could have been consecrated or translated.
ReplyDeleteCherry has to live with the painful truth that her appointment was political and not spiritual as do Joanna and June with their respective election and appointment. I was never against women being raised the episcopate but it should have been for the right reasons. The people of God deserve better than this gerrymandering.
PP. Like it or lump it, the election has taken place. The outcome perhaps not as expected. But, given the gravity of the tender care needed in the diocese, perhaps the Bishop Elect is the person for this time. Therefore, accepting the appointment, and giving some thoughtful time and respect for the office, and pray that the hands to be on the crozier are indeed the pastoral hands needed for the diocese at this time.
ReplyDeleteYour sentiments, PP, are what is wrong with the Church in Wales today. Apathy is what has allowed the secularly minded bishops to do exactly what they want. We need to stop whinging and become active. The people of Monmouth need to turn up in force and object to the episcopal stitch-up and the pending consecration. They need to make it clear that the moment His Grace lays hands on her to consecrate her, there will be no need for a Bishop of Monmouth because they will withdraw their giving and they will no longer attend church. They need to invite the media along to witness it all - His Grace loves the media - I am sure he will preen himself for that one. They need to insist on the resignations of the entire Bench for showing a lack of judgement (and their senior staff who took part in the election.) Positive discrimination is discrimination, whichever way you look at it. The Church has never been about being relevant. Yet that is the only thing this lot is concerned about.
DeleteThe Church in Wales is in its death throes, and the longer people sit back and do nothing, the quicker they hasten its death. Whilst we have a godless bunch on the Bench, there is no hope for the Church in Wales. Only today, I was talking to a lady who, at one time, attended her local church; but now doesn't bother. The reason being: the Church in Wales stands for nothing. I know of other people here in Wales who feel exactly the same.
Just look at the last two elections. To make themselves feel good and show how "with it" they are, they chose two female bishops. This time, they chose a lesbian. What will we get next? Someone transgender, blind and with a gammy leg just to show how inclusive we really are? I'm afraid that the Electoral College have turned the Church in Wales into a joke.
Seymour
"What will we get next? Someone transgender?"
DeleteYou may well be right Seymour looking at this Llandaff appointment https://twitter.com/stjohnscardiff/status/1177221219063672836
This is such a shame. This person had been in the Church in Wales for around two years? There are many hard working, loyal and holy priests who have spent all of their ordained ministry in the diocese who must be taken aback by this appointment. Is it the fact that she is transgender that qualifies her for this appointment? May we look forward to more appointments being made, willy nilly, by
Delete- June
Being a "willy nilly" is a prerequisite nowadays for preferment in the Cult in Wales.
DeleteDo you mean a "nilly willy" 1662?
DeleteThe imperative is to prepare the way for gay marriage, hence this appointment.
ReplyDeleteLW
Let us hope so !!. What vile people you are, the sooner the church is rid of you lot the sooner it will grow. May God Bless you all with gay and transgender people within your own families so you may search your souls and learn your lessons. One day you will be held to account for your harsh, cruel words and unkind behaviour. Seymour who do you think Jesus would sit with the blind, the disabled, the marginalised or you lot? The more desperate you all become the harsher your words, well He is at work in this place so get used to it. TT
DeleteTT. How hysterical. The Church has always accepted people like you long before your LGBT style evangelism was ever mentioned. You must believe that before you came to enlighten us the Church was the very soul of evil. I would bet your particular errors will shrink the Church not grow it - the evidence is already before us.
DeleteStoppit
TT, what a short memory you have. Only 2 years ago, the Diocese of Llandaff was told that it couldn't have a gay man as its bishop, even though he was the preferred choice of the electors of that diocese. The bungling bishops were then shown to have done everything behind the scenes to engineer a "no vote" at the electoral college so that they could appoint June Osborne, and usher in an age of June's Jollies at the expense of the pew sitters. It also allowed the bunglers to trumpet loud and clear, the Welsh Bench is made up of 33% of women. If you think that the appointment of Cherry Vann to Monmouth cam about because "she was the best candidate", I think you need to get out more and see the real world. She ticked 2 boxes on the bunglers' list - female and gay. The Welsh Bench will now be made up of 50% females. Come the next episcopal election, when they find their next male to female transgender person who is blind and with a gammy leg, just think how many boxes that will tick.
DeleteWhether you like it or no, TT, people have had a gutsful of it. The message of the Bench of Bunglers has got nothing to do with the Christian Gospel. They have robbed that gospel of its power. Their message is eat, drink, be merry, tomorrow we die and God is so loving that he will welcome everybody into his kingdom. It is a downright lie and they are leading this nation into hell. If you have fallen for that message, I pity you and urge you to repent whilst there is still time.
Seymour
"... he is rampaging furiously through the world because he knows his time is short."
ReplyDeleteS. Michael, pray for us.
Am I naive, stupid, or too old fashioned? But why can't bishops and bishops-elect just be honest? What do they think they can achieve by hiding aspects of their lives (that are obviously already widely known) by sowing seeds of mistrust among those they believe they are called to serve? How does Archdeacon Vann - and the Archbishop of Wales - think that healing and a recovery of trust can happen in our diocese when the speculation, whispers, winks and nudges, as well as the undercurrent of disaffection will simply continue?
ReplyDeleteGod only knows there's enough dishonesty and disregard for transparency in public life without the church's senior leaders adding to it.
"More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.”
I really struggle with this transgender issue. I suspect that it's been with us for centuries, but until very recently it was so peripheral in terms of public discourse that people who felt, psychologically, utterly uncomfortable about their gender identity saw no possible way of airing, much less of resolving, how they felt - at least in any way which promised to offer the prospect of some understanding from others. The last fifty years has witnessed a greater openness to intensely personal, and formerly private, agonies of this nature, so it's perhaps unsurprising that we now hear about things about which, fifty years ago, few of us never really knew or imagined.
ReplyDeleteIn trying to get my head round it all I sought for some no less rare but essentially different comparators by which to try to get an ethical handle on it from the perspective of Christian moral theology. And one that came to mind was the case, well publicized some years back, of two Iranian sisters who had been born as conjoined twins. They'd lived their entire childhood in that closest conceivable intimacy, but now, as adults in their early twenties, they'd agreed that they couldn't bear to live the rest of their lives physically joined together. As surgery of that complexity wasn't available in Iran, they'd been helped by charities to come to Europe for the surgery. The difficulty was that they shared some organs in common, and the risk of death in consequence of surgery was high.
But the surgeons judged that there was at least some chance that they might survive surgical separation. The surgeons set out the risks to both of them, but accepted that in the end the decision could only be theirs. They decided that they would go ahead, but sadly neither survived the surgery.
But - at least as far as I heard - no moral theologian, whether Christian or Islamic, offered an opinion on the matter. No one ventured the view either that 'this is how God made you and you ought to accept it', or that 'God's will is that each human being is a distinct entity and you ought to opt for the operation'. It seemed to be generally accepted that the appalling choice in the end could only be theirs.
I can't see how the transgender issue is essentially different. Just as none of the rest of us can really conceive what life as a conjoined twin would feel like, nor can we imagine what it must feel like to feel a woman when you're biologically a man, or vice versa. This is a uniquely individual grief and a uniquely individual dilemma. But I suspect that the church gets more hung up on the transgender issue because, unlike the issue of conjoined twins, it's to do with sex! And Christianity - especially western Christianity - has for at least a millennium and a half had a particular hang-up about matters which relate to sex.
The Christian doctrine is that, though the world was created good, it is not now perfect. Imperfections exist as exceptions, yet, overall, the creator's will can be seen.
DeleteRob
Indeed that's the case - it is (was?!) the developed Christian response to 'the problem of evil', both in terms of personal pain and tragedy in human experience and in respect of natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and the like.
DeleteThus the notion of a 'cosmic fall' rather than merely a 'fall of man' - or do we have to say 'fall of humankind' these days?! Something perhaps reflected in the thought of the psalmist when he pessimistically mused that 'all the foundations of the earth are out of joint'.
Yet for Christians the moral implications when aspects of that 'cosmic fall' impact very personally on human lives still need to be explored and pondered.
Of course women are still underrepresented as they make up 50.8% of the population (and perhaps 75%+ of the pew-sitters) so at least the next appointment should be a yet more 'woke' woman.
ReplyDeleteTraditional anglo-catholics are totally unrepresented so at least the next appointment should be...
DeleteHeterosexual white males are totally under-represented so at least the next appointment should be...
DeleteThose of us who wish to see a supposedly Christian Church (don't make me laugh!!) adhere to the Lord's teaching have no representation at all on the Bench, so at least the next appointment should be...
DeleteSeymour