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| Church in Wales bishop elect Cherry Vann (centre) and her sister bishops with a grim looking Dean Lister Tonge looking on Source: Twitter |
The Archbishop of Wales, John Davies, has announced that the Ven Cherry Vann has been elected bishop of Monmouth replacing the Rt Rev Richard Pain who retired on health grounds.
Miraculously she was on hand to be photographed with her sister bishops Joanna and June.
Currently Archdeacon of Rochdale, Vann is a musician by background. It is not immediately clear how her name came to the attention of the college but she was one of the signatories to a letter from Church of England Synod members 'piling pressure' on the College of Bishops in appealing for greater inclusion for gay Christians within the Church, thus sharing the same sympathies as her sister bishops.
Is this another stitch up to advance the bishops' drive for same sex marriage in the Church in Wales?
In support of this theory a correspondent who checked the names in the electoral college was disturbed to find that of the 26 Clergy Electors (including Bishops), 17 of them were dignitaries - i.e either a bishop, dean or archdeacon. Leaving only 9 electors from front-line clergy. "Considering any appointment needs a super-majority of two-thirds there is no chance of a popular appointment since the college is loaded with the hierarchy. If the dignitaries voted against a candidate they could block anyone since you need 32 votes to get the requisite majority. They could literally guarantee it goes to the bench and the confidentially rules means we can never know if they are voting as a block - can you believe it? This disenfranchisement of front-line clergy is wholly wrong as is loading the college with deans and archdeacons."
The announcement comes as the three-day meeting of the electoral college was drawing to a close amid suggestions that a number of candidates who had been approached intimated that they wouldn't touch the Church in Wales with a barge pole.
So, the questionion MUST be asked. Why was she there? If she was informed that her name was in the frame, from the Electoral College, then that is agsinst the rules of the College and the election should be declared void. Another sham. Considering John Davies was a solicitor (certainly not a theologian) he should, surely, recognise that the rules have been broken. What a shambolic lot.
ReplyDeleteYou are misinformed to say the least, you need to be more informed of the process.
DeleteIs it true that she might be in a partnered same-sex relationship as Anglican Ink is reporting?
ReplyDeleteReaders may draw their own conclusions from reading the Anglican Ink article http://anglican.ink/2019/09/19/bishop-of-monmouth-elected/
Deletefollowing the article in the Church of England Newspaper https://www.churchnewspaper.com/45597/archives
"Is this another stitch up?"
ReplyDeleteIs the Pope a Catholic?
Why was she miraculously on hand?
For the same reason that the job description & invitation for nominations appeared only a few weeks ago.
PP. The electors who recommended candidates, excluding bishop's who cannot nominate. Can approach persons to see if the would be interested. This allows them to read the profile and say yes or no to the nomination.A list and details can be circulated to electors.
ReplyDeleteBut it is the whole college who are presented with the candidates profiles and work accordingly to elect.
The only reason Bishop elect is present is on invitation of the college.
I cannot see it being a stich up, as the decision and it seems commitment was to seek outside Wales candidates.
The new elect Bishop has a huge background in parish ministry in urban parishes, read her Manchester bio, she is highly regarded. Wales is blessed to have her, look out mission areas strategy
When 17 of the 26 clergy electors were bishops, deans and archdeacons and a meagre 9 rank and file how can this be a fair cross section of the church?
ReplyDeleteIts the hierarchy appointing their peers, an electoral college it is not.
The assertion That she may be in a same gender relationship is not an issue for me, but the fact that 'A Spkesman for The Church In Wales declined to comment' on this issue is quite astounding, given the hysterical reaction of the Bench at the last Electoral College for Llandaff, when JJ's name was in the frame.
ReplyDeletePP. This is very interesting following recent inter faith article in this blog. The new Bishop elects view here is noteworthy
ReplyDeletehttps://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/896034/Church-St-Thomas-Werneth-Oldham-Manchester-pews-Muslims
Surely, the damning indictment of this appointment is that there is not one single cleric in the whole of Wales worthy of a mitre, including the Deans and Archdeacons. Once again, the electors have had to toddle off over Offa's Dyke to find a bench sitter.
ReplyDeleteSeymour
A Fifty-Fifty episcopate but will it have a Twenty-Twenty vision?
ReplyDeleteSo... another woman whom the Church of England, who has been put well beyond its preferment list, gets a See in Wales. Like June (who has spent all of her ministry outside Wales) and Joanna (who has spent more than half of her ministry outside Wales) we have someone with no in-depth working experience of the Province, and who starts by comparing the Diocese of Monmouth to Manchester!
ReplyDeleteOf course, my impeccable sources tell me that she was not the only woman from the C of E who is firmly off the preferment list to have been telephoned in recent weeks. Apparently, June has been thumbing her Christmas card list and calling her old mates extensively over the summer.
As for the issue of her personal life... What was it Andy Crap and the others have been lecturing Boris Johnson about? Truth and transparency, I seem to remember. What a bunch of hypocrites.
And Andy has lost his chance to be 'first ...'
DeleteThis appointment has the odour of June all over it:
Deletehttps://www.edp24.co.uk/news/archdeacon-reflects-on-the-ordination-of-women-priests-1-3587594
How very sad to see the Church like this.
ReplyDeleteLW
Unlike some of the contributors to this blog, I was/am supportive of the ordination of women. One of the many reasons for this relates to equality of opportunity, as I am of the opinion that if someone believes that they are being called by God to serve in his Church they should have that vocation tested, regardless of their gender. Having said that, I have some concerns regarding this election. Firstly, I was aware that it had been suggested prior to the election that the Electoral College would be urged to elect a woman in order to give a 50-50 gender balance on the Bench. If that was the case, then I think that this "positive discrimination" is wrong, and flies in the face of the reasoning behind my support of women in ministry. The most "suitable" and "appropriate" person should be elected, regardless of gender. I am sure that the Venerable Cherry Vann is well suited to her new role, bearing in mind her experience in Manchester. However, her seeming lack of connection with Wales, and the fact that the C of E does not seem to have taken the opportunity to ordain her to the episcopate leads me to believe that perhaps there has been some "positive discrimination" here, and the allegations of "fix" may not be all that wide of the mark. Which leads me to my second point! Why was she conveniently there, on hand to be photographed with her sister bishops and a "welcoming" Dean of Monmouth? I accept that she probably had given permission for her name to be considered, but Newport is not a 2 minute trip from Rochdale. I can only conclude that she may have been contacted by someone in the Electoral College, and advised of her possible impending election, thus enabling her to travel 3 to 4 hours for the photo opportunity. Finally, I am not concerned about her same sex partner, but, as has already been mentioned, there is a smack of hypocrisy here, bearing in mind the fuss over the nomination of Jeffrey John to Llandaff.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, this election is not a credit to the Church in Wales in general, nor the Electoral College system in particular. Cherry picking - literally.
Isn't it interesting that the Church Times, in its report of the GB, has highlighted how draft legislation to change the electoral college system of appointing bishops was carried, but then 'amended' so that it was... er... 'welcomed' but not endorsed? What are the vested interests that derailed it - and who has the most to lose by changing the current system?
ReplyDeleteAnything more open and transparent would be a real blow to the shenanigans Shirley, June and the rest of them over these past weeks and months.
Meanwhile, if not Jeffrey John why Cherry Vann? The only difference is that Jeffrey John is open and transparent - which makes Cherry Vann an ideal member of the Bench of Secrecy and Hypocrisy.
When less than 20% of the electors were front line clergy how can this 'college' be respected? Something is seriously amiss when all of Swansea & Brecon's 4 clergy electors were the ++, the Dean and both archdeacons.
ReplyDeleteThe day when I agree with some of these comments has come, I cannot believe that yet another English person with no knowledge of Wales and not Welsh speaking has been appointed. Do we not know our history? The role of Anglican clergy before disestablishment? The treachery of the Blue Books? The Bench does not have a single fluent Welsh speaker - are these people going to learn Welsh and be inducted into devolution and Welsh culture? PS Jeffrey John knows Wales and can speak Welsh.
ReplyDeleteEven though the conduct of the Electoral College is meant to be "secret", I seem to recall that one of the chief opponents to the appointment of Jeffrey John to Llandaff was +GC. Is there any significance therefore in the fact that +GC is on sabbatical leave, and (I presume) was absent from this Electoral College? Doubtless there will be some indiscreet soul who will advise us lesser mortals as to the machinations of this latest meeting.
ReplyDeleteBishop Gregory was present Belmont. There is a video on the Church in Wales web site showing him applauding behind a very enthusiastic bishop of Bangor.
Deletehttps://www.churchinwales.org.uk/news/2019/09/new-bishop-of-monmouth-elected-2/
Do they not realise this is the Welsh Church, the seed of Welsh culture and tradition? It cannot be the case that there is not a suitable Welsh candidate. What a talent the CinW has for shooting itself in the foot, recruiting not one, but 3 English non Welsh-speaking clerics to the Bench, and all candidates for LGBT Pride. Who on earth is doing this madness?
ReplyDeleteStoppit
As a complete outsider to this process, I detect a sense of "you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't". In other words, if a Bishop is chosen from inside Wales, that is clearly because of the secret internal machinations and power-struggle within the CinW; no candidate comes out untarnished by rumours of nepotism or favouritism, and laden with baggage from their previous appointments and associations. Conversely, if a Bishop is chosen from outside Wales, then they can't know the history, can't speak the language and have no understanding of the culture. There seems to be no middle ground.
ReplyDeleteI don't know this lady, nor (I suspect) do quite a few people who are posting here. Why not cut her some slack, see what she does, allow her to be her own person and then - in a year or so's time - honestly evaluate her performance?
I appreciate what you are saying. It may be that Cherry proves to be an excellent Bishop. However, from my perspective it feels like there has been an abuse of the process - a process which is in desperate need of changing. Basically, I smell a rat. A big archiepiscopal one.
DeleteBaptist Trainfan, can you swear that you have not been commissioned by the CinWs to undermine the traditionalist position of this website?
ReplyDeleteBob
Hand on heart, I have not. I am simply an interested - and sometimes shocked - bystander who was led to this website by a friend. And (as my nom de plume suggests) I am a Baptist, although I was brought up in the (dare I say it?) Church of England. Oh yes: my place of residence does lie within Monmouth Diocese.
ReplyDeleteThe Church in Wales has fallen head over heels into heresy; the prospect of an actively homosexual bishopess is worse than anything the wildest guesswork could have come up with even ten years ago. Here is a corrective from the Ordinariate: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8940364093450837549&postID=6240664712810715488.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first encountered Welsh Anglicanism back in the mid-1960s, the thought of choosing someone from beyond Offa's Dyke didn't ever appear to occur to episcopal electors. Sure, Archbishop Morris was English, but by dint of the decades which he'd spent teaching in Lampeter prior to his election he'd come to be seen as an honorary Welshman! The only exceptions were clergy who, in the days before churches in the developing world had securely evolved indigenous leadership. had become bishops in other parts of the Anglican Communion, and even those were invariably Welshmen in origin.
ReplyDeleteGiven that what was then called the Provincial Board of Patronage had apparently been deliberately established to foster inter-diocesan clergy movement as a strategy seeking to ensure that dioceses, and indeed presumably the province as a whole, didn't become overly insular, I thought that the same logic, at least now and then, might usefully be applied to episcopal appointments.
But in recent times recruitment to the Welsh episcopate from England seems to be getting close to becoming the rule rather than the exception. In the part of Wales where I now live, the Church in Wales has long rather looked like the church of the posh Anglicized local crachach and of monoglot English retirees. The ordinary locals who still have any religion are overwhelmingly Methodistiaid Calfinaidd - more briefly, these days, termed Presbyterians. Reaching a point where a preponderance of Welsh bishops, whatever their gender, are English rather than Welsh and lacking any rooted acquaintance with the Welsh language or Welsh distinctive culture is surely going to give new substance to the old disestablishment controversy gibe that Anglicanism in Wales is shorthand for Englishness. I'd have thought that the contemporary Church in Wales has more than enough contemporary challenges without giving new life to old ones.
You couldn't make it up, could you?
ReplyDeleteA Diocese that has suffered hurt, speculation and scrutiny for many months because their bishop is off work, and there is a culture of secrecy, claims and counter-claims. It is widely acknowledged that there needs to be healing, and that there needs to be a fresh start. It seems patently obvious that this Diocese needs a bishop who will be a focus of unity and who will rebuild trust.
What does the electoral college do? That's right. Elect a priest to be bishop of this Diocese whose private life is immediately a focus of speculation, claim and counter-claim. The Mighty Morrell has the audacity to field journalistic enquiries with the claim that bishops' private lives are nothing to do with anyone else (since when did public representatives of the Christian faith have permission to live their lives on two levels?), and the bishop-elect is saying nothing.
Back to Square One. Nice one, Shirley. You are nearly overtaking Barry the Golfer on the levels of contempt you are showing towards the poor bl**dy infantry. Meanwhile in Monmouth, the discontent will continue to fester. Now we know why Archdeacon Vann was going no-where near the purple in the C of E, don't we? This is Peggy with knobs on.
Just in case anyone is wondering how questions about Archdeacon Vann's personal circumstances floated to to the surface so quickly... the Lavatory Attendant never could keep his mouth shut, could he?
I have heard reports that Vann is in a same-sex partnered relationship. can you confirm?
ReplyDeleteAccording to George Conger in the latest edition of Anglican Unscripted (No 537) members of the Archbishop's Council of the Church of England and members of her diocese have "gone on the record publicly to state that she is in a partnered same-sex relationship and wears a wedding ring." A tweet wishing a Happy first birthday to Sadie, their wonderful Polish Lowland Sheepdog, appears to confirm the arrangement as does a local 192 directory showing her living with her partner.
DeleteADMIN NOTE
ReplyDeleteSome interesting anonymous comments have been deleted because pseudonyms have been omitted.
Others who have been unsuccessful in having their comments published due to a glitch in the blogger system could try opening the blog in an incognito page. I understand that has remedied the problem for some. AB
The cult in Wales continues to choose suicide.
ReplyDeleteThere is no mention of, much less a role for, the Holy Ghost in this unholy cluster f***.
Another dead cat thrown over the garden fence from the other side of Offa's dyke.
I have heard of lining up one's Ducks �� in a row but it looks like the latest must have fashion accessory is the option of lining up one's Dykes in a row.
DeleteThe permissiveness of the Church in Wales has led to the present extraordinary events. Any Church which abandons the concept of sin and seeks to make a virtue of non-conformity is of course doomed. There would seem to be no barrier now to further exploitation of the Church by anyone seeing priesthood as a convenience for their own ends - not serving but being served, not sacrificially spreading the Gospel but justifying their own contrary ends.
ReplyDeleteStoppit
Was there really no LGBT non Welsh speaking priestess, devoid of distinction in the Church in Wales?
ReplyDeletePerhaps who was not in a same sex civil partnership as well?
PP. The look on Dean Lister's face says it all. I can see trouble or retirement in the offing. What has it all come too.
ReplyDeletePP. The CT reports a change in Bishop elections in CiW, raised at the recent Swansea meeting of GB.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/20-september/news/uk/church-in-wales-reforms-to-system-of-electing-bishops-welcomed-but-not-endorsed
ADMIN NOTE
ReplyDeleteMay I once more remind commentators that 'anonymous' comments must include a pseudonym to avoid confusion. Several good comments have again ended up in the bin.