“DISCIPLINES of prayer”, liturgy, and contemplation of scripture were the “wellsprings” of religion, the Archbishop of York said in his presidential address to the General Synod on the Friday.
Research on recent growth in church attendance appeared to indicate a specific increase in attendance at “churches that supply a depth of tradition”, together with those who were “becoming more diverse”, he said.
Referring to the Bible Society’s report Quiet Revival (News, 11 April), the Archbishop suggested that there was a “more spiritually aware generation of younger people exploring faith”.
The Church of England, he said, needed to answer this by “renewing the catechetical lifetime of the Church in order that each of our churches and all our parishes really is a faculty for disciples where people receive, experience, and learn the best way of Christ”.
That 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 had written of building “a faculty within the Lord’s service”.
Christians, Archbishop Cottrell said, ought to 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 chronic opposition” to the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill (News, 27 June).
The agenda as originally drawn up 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 to support the ban (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. How many other organisations would go this far with such disagreement?”
Later, in response to a matter, Archbishop Cottrell said: “We don’t seem any nearer a settlement” on LLF, but that “whatever we determine, it’s not going to stop or go away,” as “that is people’s lives” that were being discussed. “This is the work we must do,” he said.
Archbishop Cottrell thanked the Church Commissioners for “their groundbreaking witness in transition pathways on climate change”, and for the work of Project Spire.
