THE Crown Nominations Commission considering the nomination of the subsequent Bishop of Ely has not been able reach a consensus, the Archbishop of Canterbury announced on Monday.
The statement said that it was “unlikely” that the discernment process would begin again until the Spring of 2025. “Together with the Archbishop of York and others, there can even have to be a period of reflection on the implications of this decision on the Church of England more generally,” the Archbishop said.
The Crown Nominations Committee first met on 3 May to carrying out a shortlisting, one 12 months after it was announced that the previous Bishop of Ely, the Rt Revd Stephen Conway, had been appointed the subsequent Bishop of Lincoln, having been the Acting Bishop of that diocese for greater than a 12 months (News, 26 May 2023). The CNC met again on Thursday and Friday of last week to conduct interviews.
The announcement follows the same one in December, when it was confirmed that the CNC had been unable to agree on the subsequent Bishop of Carlisle, and that a recent nomination was unlikely to be made for greater than a 12 months (News, 22 December).
Archbishop Welby told the General Synod last week of “unprecedented demand within the senior appointments system”. Through questions, members have been raising concerns concerning the functioning of the system, and the backlog that has built up. In February, Canon Simon Talbott, the Bishop of Ely’s senior chaplain, and a member of Ely’s Vacancy-in-See Committee, asked the Archbishop of Canterbury for assurances “that further reflection on the present arrangements for the CNC shall be undertaken”. The Archbishop said that the CNC had been “comprehensively reviewed within the previous quinquennium of the General Synod and there isn’t a further formal review planned” (News, 19 January 2018).
The Commission, which nominates diocesan bishops to the Crown, comprises each Archbishops, six representatives from the diocese, and 6 members of the General Synod. The Standing Orders stipulate that a two-thirds majority have to be reached for a recent bishop to be nominated, meaning that, if five members vote against an appointment, it may be blocked.
The news from Carlisle prompted questions on whether the shortage of consensus was related to the Living in Love and Faith process. The meeting of the CNC there was held just sooner or later after the House of Bishops formally commended recent prayers of blessing for same-sex couples (News, 12 December). General Synod voting figures from the February debate on the subject showed that 4 of the six people elected to the CNC from each House voted against the motion.
In Ely, the last CNC meeting took place three days after the General Synod voted narrowly to remove impediments to using these same-sex blessings in stand-alone services, and to offer delegated episcopal ministry for opponents of the changes (News, 12 July 2024). Voting figures will not be yet available.
Three of the six CNC members elected by the Ely Vacancy in See Committee are also members of General Synod. Voting figures from February 2024 show that, of the three, one voted in favour of an amendment acknowledging that “a number of the issues raised will not be matters on which they’ll simply comply with disagree”, while two voted against (News, 1 March 2024).
The diocese’s Statement of Needs sought someone who “has worked and can proceed to work constructively with the Living in Love and Faith process and can respond sensitively to the widely divergent views throughout the Diocese, each modelling and requiring honesty, openness, willingness to listen and humility, looking for common ground as we learn together easy methods to live with difference and put into practice the mutual like to which we’re called.”
A piece on finance mentioned “obvious uncertainties about our giving base, not least across the possible withholding of Ministry Shares in the sunshine of some possible LLF outcomes”.
The statement also specified someone who wouldn’t only ordained women but who “affirms fully in all respects the ministry of girls, and may exhibit such support”. The diocese had, it said, the best proportion of female stipendiary clergy of any diocese and the second highest proportion of female clergy.
The statement was frank concerning the challenges facing the diocese, noting that the diocesan plan, Ely 2025: People Fully Alive, had “didn’t reverse the decline in attendance. Our recent Bishop could have to think about easy methods to address the decline and whether an extra period of centralised planning is more likely to be probably the most effective tool to deploy.”
The Bishop of Huntingdon, Dr Dagmar Winter, is currently serving because the diocese’s acting bishop. The Archbishop’s statement on Monday said that he could be chatting with her “so as to understand from her one of the simplest ways of supporting the Diocese of Ely and her episcopal ministry in the approaching months”.
Dr Winter was among the many Bishops who last 12 months issued an announcement expressing their hope that pastoral guidance allowing priests to be in same-sex marriages could be issued “at once”, as was Bishop Conway (News, 3 November 2023).
In 2015, the CNC failed to achieve an agreement within the diocese of Oxford (News, 22 May 2015).
