“DISCIPLINES of prayer”, liturgy, and contemplation of scripture are the “wellsprings” for faith, the Archbishop of York told the General Synod on Friday, in his presidential address initially of a five-day meeting in York.
Research on recent growth in church attendance appears to point out a selected increase in attendance at “churches that provide a depth of tradition”, together with those which can be “becoming more diverse”, he said.
Referring to the Bible Society’s Quiet Revival report (News, 11 April), Archbishop Cottrell suggested that there was a “more spiritually aware generation of younger people exploring faith”.
The Church of England, he said, needed to reply to this by “renewing the catechetical lifetime of the Church in order that each of our churches and all our parishes really is a college for disciples where people receive, experience, and learn the best way of Christ”.
Friday was an appropriate day to recollect this, he said, since it was the feast day of St Benedict — “the daddy of Western monasticism” — who wrote of creating “a college within the Lord’s service”.
Christians, Archbishop Cottrell said, must be “enchanted and transformed by what God has done in Jesus Christ” and “offer the world a narrative shot through with hope: hope for salvation in Jesus Christ”.
The Archbishop also spoke about assisted dying, first by implication, after which explicitly. “My understanding of the dignity and value of each life and each moment of life comes directly from my Christian faith,” he said.
“When we lose something as foundational as decisions over life and death, we’re at risk of losing other safeguards and provisions as well,” he said, before thanking the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, and other bishops within the House of Lords for his or her “principled and protracted opposition” to the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill (News, 20 June).
The original agenda had been amended to incorporate an item on assisted dying on Tuesday, he said. The Synod had previously debated the subject in 2022, when it voted by a big majority in favour of supporting its prohibition (News, 15 July 2022).
On the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process, “we seem no nearer a settlement which is able to hold us together,” Archbishop Cottrell said. He suggested that this showed the unity of a “common baptism” and “common hope”.
“We don’t let go of one another,” he said. “How many other organisations would go this far with such disagreement?”
Later, in response to an issue, Archbishop Cottrell said: “We don’t seem any nearer a settlement” on LLF, but that “whatever we resolve, it’s not going to stop or go away”, as “that is people’s lives” which can be being discussed. “This is the work we must do”, he said.
Archbishop Cottrell went on to thank the Church Commissioners for “their groundbreaking witness in transition pathways on climate change”, and for the work of Project Spire: the £100-million “impact investment” fund which is meant to support communities affected by the transatlantic slave trade.
Project Spire is just not on the agenda for the July group of sessions, but has recently been the topic of public debate, after receiving criticism from a gaggle of historians and Synod members (News, 11 July).
Also absent from the agenda is a diocesan motion from Carlisle as regards to Palestine. In the Business Committee debate which followed Archbishop Cottrell’s address, the Archdeacon of West Cumbria, the Ven. Stewart Fyfe (Carlisle), quoted an article within the Church Times, by which the Rector of St Andrew’s, Ramallah, Fr Fadi Diab, writes that “when the General Synod claims it doesn’t have time to debate the motion, it’s effectively saying that Palestinians — and Palestinian Christians specifically — don’t matter” (News, 11 July).
“What will it take for this motion to be debated?” Archdeacon Fyfe asked.
The Bishop in Europe, Dr Robert Innes, said that, on the World Council of Churches (WCC), for which he represents the Church of England, “the talk on Palestine was a very powerful debate we had.”
He was “barely disenchanted” that the Carlisle motion had not been tabled, and asked whether the Business Committee would find time to think about “this appalling international situation”.
In response, the chair of the Business Committee, Robert Hammond (Chelmsford) said that he had heard the comments, and that the committee “understand the urgency” of the topic.
