Dr Beasley’s debate adjourned, he regrets
THE debate on a motion to transfer £2.6 billion from the Church Commissioners to diocesan stipend funds (News, 31 January) was adjourned on Friday afternoon when time ran short. Its mover, the Bishop of Bath & Wells, Dr Michael Beasley, said: “I might that we had had proper time to debate this,” after moving the adjournment. “This motion sought to bring to our serious consideration the utterly grave financial situation of our parishes and dioceses that are affecting so badly our ability to staff and take forward the ministry of our churches.” At the top of 2024, 35 dioceses had beenb in deficit to the tune of £61 million in total, he said: “Our Church’s financial architecture shouldn’t be working, and bringing us near an existential crisis.” He requested that the Business Committee allot enough time for the resumed debate in July. In the mean time, the dioceses whose synods had supported the motion — Hereford, Gloucester, Coventry, Blackburn, Chichester, Lincoln, and Bath & Wells — can be engaging with Archbishops’ Council and Triennium Funding Working Group, he said.
Love and look after each other, members told
THE General Synod took note on Monday of the Business Committee report. The committee’s chair, Robert Hammond (Chelmsford), described it as an “especially complex agenda . . . full of little light relief”. The Committee was conscious about the “unease, distress, and uncertainty” of members, given the agenda. “Love and look after one another,” he said, mindful that victims and survivors were present or watching online. The Revd Jenny Bridgman (Chester) urged the Synod to take “a trauma-based approach”, and warned against lapsing into “collective trauma” — and against “good guys versus bad guys”. Adopt Bonhoeffer’s “discipline of the tongue”, she said. Canon Mark Bennet (Oxford) was concerned concerning the limited legal resources for such an “overcrowded session”. The Archdeacon of London, the Ven. Luke Miller (London), who chairs the legislative-reform committee, gave assurances of progress in areas where legal resources weren’t needed. Penny Allen (Lichfield) urged adherence to the Vernon principle of conduct, provided that there have been no sanctions in Synod should a member resort to shouting or intimidating behaviour. The Revd Christopher Blunt (Chester) was concerned by a “functional agenda” through which doctrine appeared to have been “rigorously distanced”. The Revd Robert Thompson (London) said that the agenda focused on “what’s on the very heart of our crisis. . . What is an inappropriate speech to at least one could also be a passionate speech to a different.”
Confirmation statistics matter, Synod decides
A MOTION from Canterbury diocesan synod requesting that confirmations be included within the Statistics for Mission was carried on Wednesday afternoon. Members told stories of their very own confirmations in a debate taken from the contingency business on the agenda.
‘Embarrassing’ Issues must go, Southwark cleric urges
THE Revd Mae Christie (Southwark) presented on Friday morning a petition in support of her private member’s motion calling for Issues in Human Sexuality to be dropped from the vocations process. Ms Christie asked that her motion, backed by 146 members to this point, be debated in July. Issues was “antiquated and embarrassing” and must be consigned to history. This would occur as a part of the LLF process, but delays meant that it remained in place, Ms Christie said.
Registrars’ fees to rise by ten per cent
THE Synod approved on Wednesday an increase of ten per cent in the extent of legal fees for registrars, in a debate adjourned from last July. The Fees Advisory Commission had, at that time, suggested an increase of 24.8 per cent, but Synod members had protested that diocesan budgets had already been set for 2025, and that such a rise in the fee of the retainer couldn’t be accommodated. The acting chair of the Commission, Carl Fender (Lincoln), said that these strong views had been listened to, and a ten-per-cent increase settled on, “so as to move so far as possible towards the retainer amount indicated by the 2014 formula, whilst also taking into consideration the views expressed by Synod members and Diocesan Secretaries in July as to what may very well be accommodated in diocesan budgets”. The Commission had also reviewed in previous years, and an information-gathering exercise would help to find out whether a full review of the methodology was needed. “I believe we want to cherish our registrars, who do excellent work for us indeed,” Mr Fender said.
