Women's ministry: laughing all the way to the top

The newly announced Archdeacon of Bangor will be among the story-tellers
at an event in St Asaph Cathedral to celebrate 21 years of women priests
 in the Church in Wales.    Source: CinW Press release

There is to be another celebration of women using the church for 21 years to further their careers at the expense of others when they meet in St Asaph Cathedral to recount stories of "uncertainty, inspiration and creativity".

The occasion is being organised by MAECymru, a self-promoting group of people who claim to have a vision of the Church in Wales as "a community of God’s people where, regardless of gender, justice and equality prevail". It is a vision of a church which misrepresents any opposition with spurious claims of prejudice, misogyny and inequality.

No wonder they are offering a 50% discount to entice new members to their gang.

"Welcome !  to  MAECymru"                                                                                  Source: MAECymru 

The newly announced Archdeacon of Bangor will be among the story-tellers. Her contribution to the debate on women bishops in the Church in Wales can be found in an essay following her trip to the US where she saw a woman celebrant wearing a pointy hat. That convinced her that she was right about women's ministry and the vast majority of Christians were wrong in their belief that the ordination of women to the priesthood was contrary to scripture and tradition.

The new Archdeacon has much to say about "women's ministry" but she completely misses the point. Women's ministry has become a process for the self-advancement for women in the church. Not ordinary women who worship quietly as they keep the church running but the minority of women who shout the loudest and are content to use the church for political gain at the expense of others.

Compare what she  has to say about ministry with this extract from A Noble Task by Bishop David Thomas who was asked to reflect on his experience of ministry as Provincial Assistant Bishop and how it might change if the episcopate in Wales  were opened to women:

 "Another  dangerous misconception concerns the nature of the objection to the ordination  of women as priests. People sometimes assume that the real problem has to do  with the ministry of women in the Church. This is not the case. The assumption  arises from a failure to differentiate clearly between ministry in general and  ordained ministry in particular. Perhaps I can illustrate the point from my  liturgical responsibilities. Sometimes, for instance when a document is being  prepared for Governing Body, I have to spend hours poring over the minutiae of  a revised liturgical text. This was how I spotted that, in the ‘gold book’  Eucharist, the heading of Preface 23 (for use at ordinations, institutions,  etc.) was ‘Ministry’. The heading has been corrected in the 2004 equivalent  (no. 30) to ‘Ordained Ministry’. This contemporary, very common, tendency  unconsciously to allow ordained ministry to get submerged in the much wider  concept of ministry, leads to all sorts of mistaken perceptions. All I can say  by way of comment is that the wisest (and toughest!) spiritual adviser I’ve  ever had so far was a woman; I benefited enormously from working in my last  parish alongside a woman deacon; I made it my business to increase the number  of female eucharistic assistants in my last parish, and I worked very happily  there with a quite outstanding woman churchwarden – added to which, I am well  aware that there are some situations, perhaps many, where a woman will be  better qualified to give pastoral care than any man. I have very good reasons  for accepting, affirming, valuing and rejoicing in the ministry of women in the  Church. The difficulty for me, as for others including many women, has to do  with that distinctive aspect of presbyteral ministry which we call eucharistic  presidency."

Bishop David Thomas was the first Provincial Assistant Bishop (PAB) appointed to provide acceptable sacramental and pastoral ministry to those who, in conscience, were unable to receive the ministry of women priests. He also proved to be the last PAB after Abp Barry Morgan and his bench sitters reneged on the agreement which eased the path to women's ordination in the Church in Wales.

The bench had achieved their objective and that was that despite the overwhelming desire expressed at Diocesan meetings for similar pastoral and sacramental provision to be restored.

MAECymru shares the duplicity of the bench of bishops. They have a vision for a Church in Wales in which justice and equality prevail but it is a cloak under which secularisation has taken hold, advancing minority causes.

They couldn't care less for the countless women and men who find their church has left them.

Justice and equality for those left with no church will be quietly forgotten as the story-tellers relate their sob stories.

"A noble task"

The bishops of the Church in Wales, Llandudno 2012

 ‘The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he  desires a noble task.’  I  Timothy 3

In his Theology Wales paper 'A Noble Task' Bishop David Thomas reflected on his experience of ministry as Provincial Assistant Bishop and how this might change if the episcopate in Wales were opened to women.

Bishop David died suddenly last week in the knowledge that the first woman bishop had been enthroned in St Davids and the imported bishop-designate of Llandaff is to be consecrated in Brecon Cathedral next month. Neither of the women bishops is a Welsh speaker, a language dear to +David's heart.

One can imagine the pain and the hurt felt by this faithful priest, bishop and pastor as his noble task was pushed aside to make the Church more relevant to society, principally by prioritising sexual minorities and gender issues. 

Bishop David's paper makes interesting reading in retrospect. Listed alongside it on the Church in Wales site are back papers including one by the Rev’d Joanna Penberthy, now bishop of St Davids, 'Learn from the past and build for the future', illustrating just how much theology has been replaced by politics in the Church in Wales.

It remains to be seen if loyal Anglicans who have been encouraged against the odds to 'Be joyful and keep the faith' can any longer survive in the Church in Wales. There has been a deathly silence since the Credo Cymru 'Conference to Preserve the Breadth of Anglicanism in Wales'. The divisive 'Code of Practice in relation to the Ministry of Bishops following the Canon to enable the Ordination of Women as Bishops' has yet to be tested. 

This will be the ultimate test of sincerity by a bench of bishops who "unanimously committed to securing a continuing place in the life of the  Church for those who cannot in conscience accept the new situation created by  the ordination of women to the priesthood." For others it is already over.

"People sometimes ask me how I imagine my ministry as PAB might change in the event of women being admitted to the episcopate in the Church in Wales. The only honest answer I can give is that it would not change; it would be over."  - 'A Noble Task'.

+David Thomas RIP

Above reproach?

Church in Wales bishops, Llandudno 2012
+St Davids,  +St Asaph,  +Llandaff (Abp),  +Monmouth,  Ass+Llandaff,  +Bangor,  +Swansea&Brecon

The liberal credentials of the Archbishop of Wales are beyond question. He has been straight forward about his attitude to the next trauma for the church, same sex marriage. He talks about it here adding his thoughts about the then forthcoming women bishops legislation and his idea of 'provision' for those who remain faithful to the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church. Studying his delivery and what he had to say suggests that, given their unanimity, he and his bench have no intention of changing their previous stance on alternative Episcopal oversight.

In an earlier 'first' in 2004 Dr Morgan and his bench of bishops appointed the first divorced bishop in the UK after the electoral college failed to agree. At the time the Archbishop said the bench was unanimous in deciding that their candidate was the person "who best fitted the requirements" for the bishop's post.

In that regard it should be noted that the name of the new Bishop of Monmouth was being circulated long before the Archbishop appointed his facilitator to help diocesan representatives in their task of discernment (ie, naming the selected bishop who favours the ordination of women). The new bishop obligingly went on record saying that he was "in favour of women bishops and wants to make the church more relevant for society" - straight off the Archbishop's hymn sheet!

Had 'The Venerable Pain' not been in favour he wouldn't have had a chance but his assurances guaranteed the continuity of unanimous voting by the House of Bishops, thus perpetuating a disease which has spread to the other two Houses resulting in traditionalists being denied their rightful place in the church despite Dr Morgan's claim that "The Bishops are unanimously committed to securing a continuing place in the life of the  Church for those who cannot in conscience accept the new situation created by  the ordination of women to the priesthood." (See below).

Dr Morgan has actively encouraged the appointment of an openly gay bishop in his Province though not yet realised. Presumably he also looks forward to the appointment of a lesbian bishop following the decision to allow women to be appointed bishops in the Church in Wales giving him another 'first'. But that is not the issue here. There is one minority group within his own church whose wishes he has had no truck with. This doesn't augur well for discussions on the Code of Practice, provision for which accompanied the women bishops 'yes' vote in the Church of Wales.  

This is what Dr Morgan said in 2009 about alternative Episcopal oversight :

“We have ... given an assurance that there is room in the Church in Wales for those who in conscience cannot accept the ordination of women. However, we are not minded as bishops to perpetuate a system whereby conscientious objectors may avoid not only the ministry of ordained women but also the ministry of male bishops who have ordained them. That leads in the end to fundamental division and a denial that things are other than they are – that we do live in a church that ordains both women and men.

“There is a difference between recognising the fact that some individuals hold personal views that are at variance with what the Governing Body has decided about the ordination of women and reflecting those views in the structures of the church as if the Church in Wales as a whole had doubts about women’s ordination and the bishops who ordained them. That to my mind would be a real act of injustice – to ordained women, bishops, indeed to the whole church.” [In this context 'whole church' means his dominion, not the Holy Catholic Church which the bishops still claim to belong to despite separating from her following the vote - Ed.]

Compare Dr Morgan's statement with what he promised on behalf of the Bench when persuading the Governing Body to allow women to be ordained to the priesthood:

 The Bishops  are unanimously committed to securing a continuing place in the life of the  Church for those who cannot in conscience accept the new situation created by  the ordination of women to the priesthood. They wish to preserve the highest  degree of unity possible in the Church in Wales for the foreseeable future. With this  in mind, they propose to appoint a bishop who will undertake among other duties  the pastoral oversight of those unable to accept women as priests in the  Province, and to represent their views in the councils of the Church in Wales. He will be an Assistant Bishop,  appointed by one Bishop and authorised by all to minister in their dioceses,  and will share collegial responsibilities with the diocesan bishops in the  Province.

The 'foreseeable future' can now be seen as the shortest possible time before abandoning it bringing into doubt the bishops' sincerity. If their 'commitment' was to be strictly on their own terms they should have said so. It was a shabby promise which is about to be repeated based on the available evidence.

When the Bench of Bishops voted unanimously for the amended Bill which substituted a voluntary Code of Practice for statutory provision they already knew what was meant by alternative episcopal oversight. This was clearly spelled out by the Provincial Assistant Bishop in his paper "A Noble Task". I quote: 

... For this  reason, I believe that the only way in which it might be possible for so-called  traditionalists (how I loathe that misleading word!) to remain in the Church in  Wales [if women were to be ordained as bishops - Ed.] would be if the PAB were to be replaced by a bishop or bishops who had  jurisdiction over those in his or their pastoral and sacramental care. In  saying this, I am not necessarily suggesting the creation of a seventh  ‘non-geographical’ diocese. I can see no reason why such a jurisdiction should  not remain within the existing diocesan and provincial structures in all  matters to do with buildings, finance, schools, etc. It would be necessary,  however, for such a bishop to be able to receive in his own right the customary  declarations of canonical obedience made by clergy, churchwardens and others on  admission to office and to issue licences, dispensations and whatever other  legally binding documents are required for the day-to-day running of the  Church. Likewise, such a bishop would need to have final authority in all  matters to do with the selection, training, ordination, deployment and  discipline of those clergy in his care.

Why would 'traditionalists' now want to accept anything less? The ecstatic reaction to the passing of the amended Bill appeared to consummate the Bench's duplicity. With no canon, a damp squib was thrown in to register concern enabling the Archbishop to make another pledge:

"I promise on behalf of the bench of bishops that we will talk to a range of people across the Church. We'll come back in April to hear what people have to say but in the end the bishops will have to draw up the code of practice." [My emphasis - Ed.]

Based on statements in the public domain it is difficult to see how an acceptable Code of Practice can be agreed. In scripture a bishop must be above reproach. If they enter into discussions with the same predetermined attitude it will lay bare a disgraceful charade rendering the Governing Body vote a deception and make their positions as bishops of the Church completely untenable.