AN ANGLICAN priest who established a breakaway church in Cardiff was inadequately prepared for his responsibilities within the Church in Wales, having being appointed to steer a city-centre resource church per week after his ordination, a tribunal has concluded.
The Revd Ryan Forey — who admitted all three allegations set out within the charge — was ordained deacon in 2019 within the diocese of Portsmouth and commenced his curacy at Harbour Church, a church-plant of Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB).
A yr later, he was ordained priest within the diocese of Llandaff by the Rt Revd June Osborne, then Bishop of Llandaff, and appointed as Priest-in-Charge of St Teilo’s, Cardiff, which became often called Citizen Church (News, 21 August 2020).
Mr Forey became the Vicar of Citizen Church on 1 January 2022. On 27 October that yr, he was certified by Bishop Osborne as having accomplished his curacy directly under her supervision.
On 22 December 2023, it was proposed that he go on voluntary study leave for six months. On 18 April 2024, he resigned his post.
The criticism was referred to the tribunal in November 2024 by the present Bishop of Llandaff, the Rt Revd Mary Stallard. The first allegation was that, while chair of the PCC between October 2020 and February 2024, Mr Forey had authorised payments from PCC funds to himself and his wife of £300 a month, “in lieu of parochial fees for infrequent office services which weren’t conducted”.
The justification for this was that the character of Citizen Church and its congregation meant that the clergy didn’t conduct many occasional offices and “subsequently they didn’t receive the fees that ordinarily they might have if ministering in a more traditional parish context”. Also authorised was £500 a month in “clergy spouse” payments.
Mr Forey told the tribunal that he had a “real, albeit misguided belief” that the payments were permissible, “having seen similar practices utilized in previous churches he had worked at prior to ordination with no objection”. The payments were never concealed and were approved annually by the PCC.
The second charge concerned an internet app, Citizen App. Despite concerns raised during development that it didn’t comply with GDPR and that there have been safeguarding risks (since it displayed the names of kids attending the church to other users), it was used between February and March 2023, with Mr Forey deciding that it will be a “backward step” to take it down. He told the tribunal that this had been a “particularly difficult time for him”, provided that his wife was suffering a miscarriage.
The third charge was that he had established a church outside of the Church in Wales structure — “Be Church, Cardiff”, with staff and members of the congregation of Citizen Church — and “held or accepted the position of pastor without the consent of his Bishop”.
On 12 January 2024, he had a “difficult meeting” with Bishop Stallard and on the identical day enquired about booking event spaces with the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for Be Church.
This decision was “born out of hurt, vulnerability, and a crisis of religion in his future within the Anglican Communion”, he told the tribunal, pointing to “ambiguity surrounding the accusations made against him, an absence of clarity and support from church leadership, and the character of private criticisms directed to him.
“He suffered from untreated ADHD and felt that establishing an independent church would enable him higher to proceed his ministry. He accepts he was unsuitable and is now determined to pursue his ministry inside the Anglican Communion.”
THE judgment speaks of “substantial mitigation”, describing Mr Forey as “a talented and charismatic young priest who was operating in exceptional conditions.
“He was asked to maneuver to Wales during his final yr in training and really moved very shortly after diaconal ordination. He was appointed priest-in-charge of a congregation per week after ordination as a priest. He subsequently missed the structured support of a proper curacy, essentially because he was placed by the previous Bishop of Llandaff immediately into an incumbency-level post.”
Beginning his post throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the judgment says, meant “limited opportunities for oversight and mentoring”, while the PCC that he chaired was “similarly inexperienced” in governance.
The judgment concludes, nevertheless, that Mr Forey was “prepared to disregard the principles to which he was subject and pursued courses of motion which he must have realised would have brought the Church in Wales into disrepute”.
It refers to “a component of arrogance and a readiness to minimise his own failings”. Mr Forey was “prepared to side-line the PCC to pursue what he thought was right”, and “went behind the back of the Church in Wales hierarchy” by failing to debate his concerns with its leaders.
The penalty is a “monition” accompanied by a set of conditions: Mr Forey shall not hold an incumbency post within the Church in Wales until he has successfully accomplished a minimum period of two years’ supervision under the direct oversight of an incumbent with no less than five years’ experience.
With the correct guidance and supervision, there may be, the judgment says, “no reason for him to not develop his ministry and be a substantial asset to the Church in Wales or one other church inside the Anglican Communion”.
The determination records that, after the draft penalty was agreed in July, Mr Forey asked for permission to share it with some C of E bishops “as soon as possible so he can discuss the power to maneuver on” and that this was agreed. He went on, nevertheless, to send no less than one email concerning the penalty to a church leader before the choice was finalised.
This email had contained “a variety of inaccurate assertions concerning the process and procedure adopted, including a suggestion that the Bishop of Llandaff had interfered in the method late within the day, resulting in a more severe penalty being imposed”. He had also asserted that the findings contained “no safeguarding concerns” and “no questions on [Mr Forey’s] leadership”.
The judgment expresses concern that his request for authorisation to resume a full ministry role and acquire the talents required “on the job” displays “a concerning lack of comprehension of the gravity of the matters he has admitted”.
In a press release published on Instagram last Friday, Mr Forey said that he and his family had endured “a season of gossip, rumours, and online trolling where fake social media and email accounts were created to fuel a narrative”. Planting and leading Citizen Church was “certainly one of the best privileges of my life. . . We grew big, we grew fast, we got things unsuitable and we grew through that.
“I did make mistakes, I make no excuses for them. . . I’ve also learned from them. . . As painful because it is, I feel failure — in God’s hands — can change into certainly one of the best lessons in leadership. . . There’s quite a bit I’d do otherwise if starting again and I hope I’ll be given the prospect to indicate that.” He hoped to return to ministry in England.
THE case highlights the numerous responsibilities that church-planters tackle, sometimes only a couple of years after ordination. Within a yr of its launch, Citizen Church was asked to plant in Senghenydd, Caerphilly. In 2023, one other site, Citizen Pontypridd, was launched.
At Hope Street, Wrexham, the Revd Andy Kitchen and the Revd Rachel Kitchen were appointed as Joint Lead Ministers in the identical yr as their ordination to the priesthood, after a one-year curacy at HTB.
An SDF grant awarded to the diocese of London in 2017 was to fund the training of 15 planting curates — ten training at HTB — expected to plant in “strategic cities, by way of size and student population” between 2020 and 2022, to extend their congregation to 1000, and to plant every three years (News, 29 March 2018).
In his book on resource churches, which documents their record in church growth, the previous Bishop of Islington, Dr Ric Thorpe, writes that their leaders are “under huge expectations to plant something from scratch, lead through several stage of growth, develop leaders to ‘give away’, and do it time and again. There are usually not many who’ve the leadership competence, character, capability and calling vital.”
Last yr, a resource-church leadership programme often called Camino, at St Hild College, was awarded £437,000 by the Ministry Development Board. Its director, the Revd Dr Christian Selvaratnam, said that the “normal journey of maturing as a frontrunner is accelerated, even perhaps too quickly”, and that there was a must avoid waiting for people to “crash”, which could be prevented by “doing a greater job of preparing them” (News, 13 December 2024).
The course will include teaching on governance and fund-raising. Mr Forey told a diocesan learning event in 2023 that, owing to its rapid growth and constructing redevelopment, Citizen was faced with a big deficit, despite a considerable rise in congregational giving.
The recipient of an allocation of £1.5 million from the Church in Wales Evangelism Fund over five years, Citizen also secured a £525,000 loan from the Llandaff diocesan board of finance in 2020. About half has since been converted to a grant, while the rest is to be repaid over ten years (quite than five). In 2023, capital spend stood at almost £250,000 and staff costs at just over £300,000. Giving totalled almost £340,000.
The latest annual report refers back to the leadership of Citizen having identified in 2023 the necessity for “significant improvement to the charity’s operation”, as infrastructure and process had been “outpaced” by rapid growth and planting.
Last October, it was announced that the Revd Mark Simpson, Assistant Curate (Associate Vicar), had been appointed Vicar.
IN 2020, the diocese of Portsmouth issued a press release — “Portsmouth’s largest church launches latest church plant” — heralding the planting of Citizen Church, which was described as a “daughter church”. The then Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Revd Christopher Foster, recorded a video for the commissioning service held at Harbour Church.
He described in Dr Thorpe’s book having desired to “proceed the principle of supporting each other and to ‘pass on’ the model, in the identical way that we in Portsmouth had benefitted and proceed to profit from the generosity of the St Peter’s Brighton team.
“So, in the summertime of 2020, when the decision and opportunity got here in Cardiff to plant a church, it was an enormous blessing to have the option to work with Bishop June Osborne and for Harbour Church to gift a team to plant Citizen Church in Cardiff.”
On Tuesday, a Portsmouth diocese spokesman said: “The decision of the Church in Wales to make Ryan Forey an incumbent was not one made by our diocese. . .
“No payments have been made by Harbour Church, Portsmouth, to clergy, spouses, staff or volunteers along the lines suggested by Ryan Forey — either at present or prior to now.”
The Church Times approached Bishop Osborne for comment.
