Senior Appointments

Monday in Synod
Senior Church Appointments

After lunch, the Synod went on to debate the Pillling report on senior church appointments, and debated a motion that had been redrafted in order to respond also to the Government's Green Paper, published last week.

The Synod welcomed the prospect that the Church would receive the "decisive voice" in the appointment of bishops for which the Synod had voted in 1974, and affirmed its willingness for the Church to have the decisive voice in the appointment of deans and canons appointed by the Crown, given the Prime Minister's commitment to a process of constructive engagement between the Government and the Church.

A number of amendments were lost, including two that sought to overturn the Pilling recommendation that bishops should seek conservative Evangelicals and traditional Catholics for senior appointments. They are currently under-represented in proportion to the their numbers among the clergy in general.