THE General Synod took note of proposed amendments to the Standing Orders relating to the membership, chairing, business, and procedures of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), on the Tuesday, in advance of a vote later in the week.
Five of the nine amendments had come collectively from the CNC’s central members, who are elected to it by the Synod. The remainder had come from the House of Bishops, and these were the most hotly debated: the Bishops were accused of a “power grab” and criticised for a lack of consultation.
One proposed that abstentions would no longer be counted as a vote against a candidate. Another proposed a change to the threshold required for submitting a name to the Prime Minister. The third would mean that a show of hands would replace the secret ballot. The fourth would allow the chair an extra vote in a case where neither of the remaining candidates had reached the selection threshold.
The proposals had been given greater emphasis by the failure, last year, to appoint in Carlisle and Ely, and the breach of confidentiality implicit in the leaking of detail from the CNC which had appointed the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd John Perumbalath. They also came in the context of the Canterbury CNC planned for 2025.
There had been 16 diocesan bishops appointments since 2022, the Archbishop of York reminded the Synod. Moving the motion, he emphasised that it was the prerogative of individual members to vote according to their conscience, and acknowledged: “We have to accept that from time to time a nomination isn’t made.
“But, at the same time, I recognise from the many conversations and communications I have had that, when this happens, especially when it happens twice, confidence in the CNC process is affected, which has caused shock and dismay inside and outside the Church.”
Jane Patterson (Sheffield) suggested that a non-appointment could be considered as discernment, not failure. “CNCs are very challenging — a few extremely so, with pressure exerted from the chair. . . I have been present when another member has been pressurised to change their vote. It does happen. For this reason, I regard the secret ballot as an essential safeguard.”
The Revd Lis Goddard (London) had sought and failed to get an independent review of what had gone wrong in the CNC process for Winchester, and expected that the same request would be made by the central members after the discussion over the retirement of the Bishop of Liverpool — “And rightly so,” she said. “If you don’t reflect, we don’t learn.”
The proposals before the Synod represented “a shift in how we operate — frankly, shifting that power dramatically to those who already hold the majority of power”, she said. “These changes will undermine diocesan members, making it much easier for them to be pressured into particular decisions, and compromise the integrity of what is a carefully balanced voting system.”
Nadine Daniel (Liverpool) had been on the Liverpool CNC in question. Her recollection, she said, had been “somewhat different to what appeared on Channel 4 News. The only thing I can say, because my oath of confidentiality is very important to me, is that, if I thought somebody was being bullied, I would have spoken up about it and I would have been very ashamed of myself if I hadn’t. If I am privileged to stand again, I do not want to be sitting in the same room as that person.”
Robert Hammond (Chelmsford), speaking in his own capacity and not as chair of the Business Committee, wanted to see the development of a code of practice for CNC members, akin to the Synod’s own code. “We do not know who leaked the details of that CNC, but I would hope that, if they are members of the Synod, they will be open with us, they will not serve on any future CNCs, and, if members of other councils or bodies or commissions, they would resign, having clearly contravened a declaration of trust,” he said.
Canon Andrew Dotchin (St Edmundsbury & Ipswich) urged CNC members — amid all the other voices, the “tap on the shoulder”, and the “walk in the garden” — not to “lose a sense of the voice we should be listening to — the Holy Spirit”.
The Revd Professor Morwenna Ludlow (Exeter) said that discerning bishops “in obedience to God’s will . . . could lead us to something we hadn’t anticipated”. She urged the Synod to remember the deeper theological issues.
The Revd Mark Miller (Durham) wanted to “offer a voice to my female local CNC colleagues, who have given me permission to share these words and views. We are not all on the same page when it comes to the theological matters before us. We are diverse in our views. There is protection for all in the secret vote. . . There are so many dynamics, so many mismatches of understanding, knowledge, and, therefore, power.”
The Revd Rachel Webbley (Canterbury) reminded the Synod that the open ballot had been recommended in the 2019 O’Donovan report Discerning in Obedience and had been only narrowly defeated. “Given our strenuous work in the long debate today, our culture of accountability does seem to be lacking,” she said. Adequate pastoral care for CNC members was an important consideration. “However, I have also spoken with other lay people who have found this narrative of intimidation of laity patronising and debilitating, actually perpetuating the hierarchical and unaccountable culture and clericalism that these changes are seeking to improve.”
The Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, spoke of “the way in which we create the opportunities so that only ‘people like us’ — whoever that ‘us’ is — get on to certain committees, and then those committees make the decision in relation to ‘people like us’. However we want to interpret that, I am troubled by it, because I do not see the Holy Spirit at work in it and through it. There must be a better way for us to operate, and a better way for the Holy Spirit to have its way in terms of the choice of leadership within our Church than the way we ourselves orchestrate one another depending on the camps we belong to.”
Dr Ros Clarke (Lichfield) was glad that safeguarding continued to be central in the discernment work of the CNC. “This seems to me by far a more urgent matter than changing — or, dare I say, undermining — the democratic processes by which these appointments are made,” she said. “Synod, we know better than anyone how deeply divided we are as a Church at the moment. Are we really surprised that, in a Church where crucial votes have regularly hinged on just a tiny percentage, that CNC committees are sometimes unable to reach that two-thirds majority? I think we are in danger of bringing a sledgehammer to crack the wrong nut.”
The motion to take note was carried.
