The General Council’s decision to protect the parishes of the Church of England and cathedrals as church employees undoubtedly showed good judgment and courage.
Synod members were subjected to strong political pressure during discussions on the future of conservation in order to transfer all conservation staff adopted by the diocese and cathedrals to external institutions.
In a powerful speech at the Synod Conference held at Church House in Westminster on February 11, Rep. Marsha DeCordoba, the second Church Estate Commissioner, raised questions in the House of Representatives about the founded church, and the model I pushed hard below for a complete outsourcing. Four options members later voted for.
She said: Be the first step to restoring trust. ”
She concluded: “If we want to honor our victims and our survivors, and if we want to work towards the kind of church we want for the future, that change must begin now.
“Synod, I hope you can get up to Congress later this month with questions from church committee members and report the good news to members of Congress.”
However, synod’s decision to protect the diocese and cathedral conservation staff in their homes while moving most of the national conservation staff to independent institutions is reasonable.
Synod legislated in July 2023 in line with recommendations for an independent investigation into child sexual abuse (IICSA), upgrading the parish’s protection advisor (DSA) to the diocesan guardian (DSO) and the bishop’s response to the bishop’s response. Operational independence has been ensured. The DSO was no longer merely an advisor to the bishop, but protected the experts employed by the parish’s finance committee.
The legal changes meant that DSOS gave the responsibility to protect the diocese’s leadership, and that the Church’s National Protection Team (NST) would be responsible for the responsibility of DSOS’s professional oversight to the head of the diocese bishop.
Which bishop, in his or her righteous mind, will try to cross the DSO in a conservation investigation? Such bishops will be reported to the NST immediately and will be subject to disciplinary action. The whistleblowing power of the DSO increases exponentially as the church’s national guardians become employed by independent institutions.
Ahead of the discussion in London from 106 parents at E of E, prior to the discussion from parents at E, who currently spend around £20 million a year on protection; A letter to members of Synod said, “we had insisted on stripping the Church of England’s protective staff from current employers. It almost inevitably creates additional barriers to communication and cooperation, and harms service delivery. .
“Any barrier to ‘service delivery’ in this context can have the most serious consequences of anything, given the protection of children and vulnerable adults. The last thing the Church of England needs is to disrupt the working relationship between church officials and conservation professionals. Work with them. ”
Regarding voting, the majority of synod members chose to agree with these protective experts against outside pressure. This encourages the question of why synods do not show the same rationality and independence of mind in the pressures of moving forward. Gay wedding celebration?
Bishop C of E is deeply divided into itself, delaying the introduction of standalone services to celebrate same-sex couples, which effectively becomes a gay wedding celebration, but they are The prospect of this happening is causing chaos and division in the church.
Last December, the Telegraph newspaper reported that C’s conservatives were preparing to order their ministers in protest of same-sex blessings. The paper said, “The Rev. William Taylor, a leading figure in the church’s evangelical wing, said that traditionalists plan to organize informal ordinances next year.”
Taylor, president of St. Helen’s Diocese of London, told the Pastor’s Heart Podcast of Anglican Diocese in Sydney, Australia, that a group of conservative ministers would “certainly be ordained in 2025.” .
The Telegraph describes the move as a major escalation amid the serious disparity in the Church to gay relationships, as only bishops who support gay blessings are allowed to appoint ministers. I did.
“The informal ordinance is expected to trigger a ferocious response from the Church of England hierarchies.
The church is under great political and media pressure to launch independent services and enable clergy to enter into same-sex civil marriages. But if Synod members can resist the pressure of seeking full outsourcing of protection for good reason, why not show the same rationality and avoid all the troubles over the same-sex blessings?
Julian Mann is a former English pastor and is now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
