THE six Central Members of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) — those elected by General Synod — are “unanimous of their disquiet” over how proposals on changes to Standing Orders, to be debated on Thursday, were developed.
A background paper confirms that the proposals, which include ending the key ballot and giving an additional vote to the chair within the case of deadlock, got here from the House of Bishops within the wake of the CNC’s failure to appoint in Carlisle and Ely.
Moving a take-note debate on the CNC report on Tuesday, squeezed into the agenda on a day dominated by safeguarding, the Archbishop of York said: “We have to simply accept that once in a while a nomination isn’t made.
“But at the identical time, I recognise from the numerous conversations and communications I actually have had that, when this happens, especially when it happens twice, confidence within the CNC process is affected, which has caused shock and dismay inside and outdoors the Church.”
CNC members make a declaration of trust to one another, undertaking to not disclose to any outside person details about its proceedings. A current member, the Revd Lis Goddard (London) expressed Central Members’ anger at lack of consultation over the recommendations, which, she told the Synod, represented “a large shift in how we operate, shifting the facility dramatically to those that already hold the vast majority of power.
“These changes will undermine diocesan members,” she said. “That will turn out to be clear as we debate the Standing Order changes, making it much easier for them to be pressured into particular decisions, and compromise the integrity of what’s a fastidiously balanced voting system. We must listen to power, and particularly within the CNC system at the moment.”
Speaking in his own capability and never as chair of the Business Committee, Robert Hammond wished to see the event of a code of practice for CNC members, akin to the Synod’s own code. “We know that alleged specific allegations of a Crown Nominations Commission have been leaked by a member of the Commission to the press,” he said.
“We have no idea who leaked the small print of that CNC but I might hope that, in the event that they are members of the Synod, they can be open with us, that they may not serve on any future CNCs, and if [they are] members of other councils or bodies or commissions, they’d resign, having clearly contravened a declaration of trust.”
The Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, was forthright in her view of how CNCs were operating, referring to “the way in which wherein we create the opportunities in order that only ‘people like us’ — whoever that ‘us’ is — get onto certain committees, after which those committees make the choice in relation to ‘people like us’.”
She continued: “However we would like to interpret that, I’m troubled by it, because I don’t see the Holy Spirit at work in it and thru it. There have to be a greater way for us to operate, and a greater way for the Holy Spirit to have its way, by way of the selection of leadership inside our Church, than the way in which we ourselves orchestrate each other depending on the camps we belong to.”
The Synod voted by a show of hands to be aware of the report.
