THE General Synod voted on the Thursday to approve some, but not all, of the proposed changes to Standing Orders relating to the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), after a debate that ran to more than twice its allotted time.
The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, separately moved each of the nine amendments, to two of which there were further amendments. Like the Archbishop of York in Tuesday’s take-note debate on the CNC report, she acknowledged that confidence in the process had been “knocked significantly” after no nominations had been made in Carlisle and Ely. Concerns had been raised in the previous year from a variety of people and a range of church traditions, related to “hidden criteria, lobbying, and lack of diversity”.
“We can’t see this debate in isolation [from matters such as] safeguarding and HR. Behaviour and culture need to change to make it possible to attend to the Holy Spirit,” she said. “If the CNC process is to work well, it must have the full confidence of the Church, especially those under-represented in senior roles.”
The Synod could use “three sledgehammers or three nutcrackers to tackle what is a relatively crackable nut”, the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson, suggested at the outset, acknowledging “a significant shift of power” in three of the latter proposals and urging members not to vote for them.
The Synod voted in favour of an amendment to allow for the other central member of a pair to attend a meeting in the other’s place in an emergency: one such pairing, the Revd Joanna Stobart (Bath & Wells) and the Revd Claire Lording (Worcester), celebrated this as “an opportunity to live out our deeply held convictions about shared ministry”.
The Synod also voted to allow deputies to be appointed for the Prime Minister’s or the Archbishops’ appointments secretaries; and for an interpreter when a member needed assistance or had limited English — something that would enable greater participation by unrepresented groups, Bishop Mullally said.
Sarah Tupling (Deaf Anglicans Together), using BSL, assured the Synod that this would not delay the process. Rebecca Mynett (St Albans), via Zoom, was able to allay the concerns of Prudence Dailey (Oxford) that, when it came to the Canterbury CNC, with its five representatives from the Anglican Communion, there were “extremely experienced interpreters specialising in churches”.
An amendment making provision in an archiepiscopal vacancy for an archbishop to direct a member of the House of Bishops to deputise, but not before the Synod had dismissed an amendment to this amendment from Clive Scowen (London), which sought to transfer that power to the House of Bishops. It resisted by the Revd Rachel Webbley (Canterbury) — “We ask the House of Bishops to do plenty of work already, and they do it collegially” — and from the Revd Chantal Noppen (Durham) — “We need to trust the Archbishops.”
Support came in a plea for common sense from Mary Durlacher (Chelmsford), on Zoom. The Acting Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Revd Martin Gorick, who is the Bishop of Dudley, raised the position of suffragans, who currently did not have voting rights in the House of Bishops.
Mr Scowen’s amendment was lost in the Houses of Bishops and Clergy: voting was Bishops 8-13, with five recorded abstentions; Clergy 78-83, with four recorded abstentions; Laity 94-80, with two recorded abstentions.
Next came an amendment to prevent an abstention being counted as a vote against. It would be ignored in determining whether an individual had the necessary level of support.
The Archdeacon of Knowsley and Sefton, the Ven. Pete Spiers (Liverpool), supported it. “If only 13 people [of the 14] vote, you know someone has abstained. It’s important to be able to discuss your vote together and come to a fair and accurate picture of the candidate under discussion. We are the ones who decide the rules.”
Canon Esther Prior (Guildford), the Bishop-elect of Aston, struggled to find words to express her fury, going so far as to suggest that it had triggered memories of growing up in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, where the President had created a dictatorship “standing order by standing order. We cannot see this in isolation, but as part of the wider problem of accountability and proper processes. Without addressing it, change will be slow or may not come at all.”
The Revd Mike Tufnell (Salisbury) urged the Synod: “Pay attention to power. . . Help avoid a PR disaster. Reject these proposals as a power grab. Do they strike you as humble proposals to amplify the voice of the Holy Spirit, or one particular voice?”
The Archdeacon of West Cumberland, the Ven. Stewart Fyfe (Carlisle), had found the confidentiality of the failed CNC “watertight” in his efforts to tease out what had happened at Carlisle. “If it was a theological issue, this amendment just fans the flames,” he said. “If it’s to avoid non-appointment, it’s a wise exercise of your authority. What would have helped us was not going to the back of an 18-month queue as if we had been naughty.”
Aiden Hargreaves-Smith (London) had been involved in 42 episcopal-nomination processes, and was concerned about the genesis of these proposals. CNC members had had no prior papers, and no justification of what was being proposed, he said. “At a time when trust has sadly been in short supply, this does not represent good progress. This is a process of discernment, not a competitive appointment process.”
The Archdeacon of Liverpool, the Ven. Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes (Liverpool), disagreed. She had been part of an “inner ring” of informal conversations about whether to weaponise abstentions. “Let’s not pretend it doesn’t happen,” she said. “It’s choosing not to vote. At the moment, they are being used to block any appointment.”
The Revd Tim Edwards (Rochester) believed that the effect would be to remove some of the checks and balances that were among “the glories of the Church of England”.
Bishop Mullally defended the proposal as “not doing away with [abstentions]. . . It’s not about power being abused by bishops, but within the system. It is about a misuse of power,” she said. “Do we want to continue to collude with it or, rather, treat the symptoms and remove the cause? We want to address our power, but, if we continue to put it in darkness, we will not do that.”
The amendment was lost in the Houses of Clergy and Laity: Bishops 16-9, with two recorded abstentions; Clergy 83-84, with one recorded abstention; Laity 86-94, with one recorded abstention.
Next came an amendment to change the threshold required for submitting a name to the Prime Minister, from two-thirds to 60 per cent. The current threshold means that, when one or more members are unable to support a candidate, the search must begin again.
Nic Tall (Bath & Wells) thought this a good idea, “fixing a mathematical glitch that makes it harder for a CNC to do its job. It’s still a super-majority and a high bar to clear.”
The Ven. Dr Adrian Youings (Bath & Wells) said: “We go for consensus every time. People in the room all have the power to veto, and every single time each member put aside the power in their hand and sought to come together to consensus. We’re not after winners and losers, but winners and winners.”
The Revd Dr Charlie Bell (Southwark) believed that “We should pay attention to power, also to truth. Speak honestly in the chamber. If the CNC fails to appoint, it is a failure to do the job we require you to do. It’s the truth we seem determined to skirt. We’re not here to speak in riddles and rhymes.” A group of people were not being considered for diocesan appointments, he suggested. “LLF is being weaponised in the wider CNC process. We seem suddenly determined to crush vocation in this chamber. We need to get real. Pass this amendment, and let the CNC do its job as intended.”
Rosemary Wilson (Southwark), via Zoom, said: “Trust has been a major issue this quinquennium. . . It’s a crucial time for the Church. We really need to be pulling together. Ask whether this proposal facilitates that or not.”
The Revd Lis Goddard (London) moved an amendment to the amendment which would keep the two-thirds threshold for submitting a name to the Prime Minister, but with a fall-back that, where the threshold was not met, a name could be submitted if it had the support of a simple majority of the (usually) eight central members of the CNC, and the support of a simple majority of the (usually) six diocesan members. The Bishop was “offering a hammer”, but “I offer a nutcracker,” she said.
The Revd Kate Massey (Coventry) said: “It has long been a concern that CNC membership is unrepresentative of the Church as a whole. . . It is very difficult to appoint women in this quinquennium. They are being invited into the discussion process and not being appointed. They know simple maths is against them. You now have the opportunity to change it. Vote for the motion and against this amendment.”
The Revd Paul Benfield (Blackburn) said that, while he had voted against the introduction of women bishops, he accepted and lived by the Five Guiding Principles. “I find it offensive to be accused of discriminating in this way,” he said. Women had been appointed in both Coventry and Sodor & Man, for which he had been on the CNC.
Professor Joyce Hill (Leeds), who chairs the Standing Committee, told the Synod: “We have a longstanding tradition of a super-majority. But we don’t need the introduction at this point of a convoluted complexity.”
The Revd Graham Hamilton (Exeter) wondered why something that would not happen in a diocesan appointment should happen in an episcopal one: “It can’t be good for a bishop to be imposed on a diocese when a majority doesn’t want them.”
Busola Sodeinde (London) said that, once an appointment was made, it was incredibly difficult to remove a bishop, unless there was a scandal. She urged rejection of the main motion.
The Goddard amendment was lost in a vote by Houses: Bishops 8-18, with one recorded abstention; Clergy 79-93; Laity 93-93, with two recorded abstentions.
The main amendment was subsequently also lost in the House of Laity: Bishops 17-9, with two recorded abstentions; Clergy 88-85; Laity 87-102.
A further amendment was to do away with the secret ballot. “The secret ballot creates a veil of mystery dividing us when we need to come together,” Bishop Mullally said. “It is perceived as a barrier to openness and transparency. It is because of a power imbalance that some feel they are safer with the secret ballots. It’s better to address power, and create an environment when open conversation can occur.”
In a maiden speech, the Revd Martin Davy (Oxford) said that the secret ballot protected members from “undue and unintended influence . . . from repercussions of those in authority. The reality is that members feel constrained by an unspoken expectation to conform. Resist politicising the process.”
Samuel Wilson (Chester) said: “So many of us here at Synod vote the way we do because we are terrified what people will think of our vote. I understand the need for a secret ballot, because some people are scared, but I’ll be voting in favour of this because I trust in all of you to say what you believe.”
Dr Catharine Rhodes (Sheffield) favoured the change. “How can you have a full and open discussion without openly talking about candidates? We need to open the door and let the light in.”
Dr Diana Tremayne (Leeds) was also in favour. Knowing how one another had voted “might make it easier to express opinion”.
One concern of the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Revd Jonathan Baker (Southern Suffragans), was pressure being put on members if they did not have “recourse to a private place”.
Dr Nick Land (York) also feared pressure from bishops or from members’ own “inner ring”. The courage to vote differently when you discovered that “the right person came from a different theology,” required the conditions of a secret ballot. “We need to better respond to the Holy Spirit and change our views.”
The Revd Professor Morwenna Ludlow (Exeter) believed that the best protection was “the confidentiality of the whole process”.
Canon John Dunnett (Chelmsford) found parallels in the 1984 Trades Union Act on secret ballots, introduced to reduce the power of activists to prevent coercion and intimidation.
Alison Coulter (Winchester) thought that it was a matter of Christian leadership: “If you’re elected to CNC, you’ve been invited into a leadership role within the Church. We need to have courage. There should be no fear in the process.”
For the Revd Andrew Mumby (Southwark), it was the difference between confidentiality and secrecy. “There’s no place for secrecy in the Church,” he said.
The amendment was lost in the House of Laity: Bishops 16-6, with three recorded abstentions; Clergy 87-83, with four recorded abstentions; Laity 79-105, with one recorded abstention.
The final amendment would give the person presiding at the meeting a second vote in a situation in which no more than two candidates remained under consideration, and no candidate had received the required level of support after three rounds of voting. Bishop Mullally described this as “giving the CNC an additional tool. It recognises that the answer may still be no.”
The Revd Mark Miller (Durham) said: “Agreeing to this proposal would mean setting up the Archbishop of York and Archbishop of Canterbury to increased scrutiny: look what happened in Liverpool. Given the very public role of the Archbishops or to protect them from themselves, please reject this.”
Dr Laura Oliver (Blackburn), a GP, was used to managing people of different views, she said, but she had found herself “belittled, patronised, and deflated” by the CNC process. Reject the possibility of an abuse of power, she urged.
The Archbishop of York said: “I don’t want this added power, and, if you vote for it, Synod, I will choose not to use it.”
Dr Simon Eyre (Chichester) also opposed it: “Everyone on a CNC is equal and has an equal vote.”
The Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin (Canterbury), said: “Fear and power and trust have been buzzwords in the last few Synods, and in this one. It’s seen in the signing of petitions, the withdrawing of money if we don’t get what we want. I want to acknowledge power.”
Fr Thomas Seville CR (Religious Communities) supported the direction of the proposal as “getting the CNC out of a possible log-jam and preventing a failed nomination. It is, in effect, a casting vote,” he said. The Synod was “worrying too much about Their Graces’ having too much power”.
The motion fell in all three Houses: Bishops 4-14, with four recorded abstentions; Clergy 24-128, with seven recorded abstentions; Laity 23-149, with seven recorded abstentions.
Church House has issued this summary of changes approved and not approved.
Changes approved
- Where one of the central members serving on a CNC is unable to attend, allowing the other member of their “pair” to take their place.
- Enabling deputies to be substituted for the Prime Minister’s Appointment Secretary or the Archbishops’ Appointment Secretary if they are unable to attend.
- Allowing the CNC to invite an interpreter to attend meetings where necessary
- where the see of an Archbishop is vacant, enabling the other Archbishop to appoint a Bishop to act as deputy
- a temporary amendment enabling a Bishop to preside at a CNC meeting when neither Archbishop can attend.
- changing the threshold required for submitting a name to the Prime Minister from two-thirds to 60 per cent of a CNC.
- An amendment which would have prevented an abstention from being counted as, in effect, a vote against a candidate.
- Replacing the requirements for a secret ballot with a requirement for a counted vote to be taken on a show of hands.
- give the person presiding at the relevant meeting of the Commission a second vote where no more than two candidates remained under consideration and no candidate had received the required level of support after three rounds of voting.
- changing the threshold required for submitting a name to the Prime Minister from two-thirds to 60 per cent of a CNC.
- An amendment which would have prevented an abstention from being counted as, in effect, a vote against a candidate.
- Replacing the requirements for a secret ballot with a requirement for a counted vote to be taken on a show of hands.
- give the person presiding at the relevant meeting of the Commission a second vote where no more than two candidates remained under consideration and no candidate had received the required level of support after three rounds of voting.
